Woman who lost custody of children has expert’s evidence overturned

[IwantToRetire]

A mother has won a landmark legal battle to overturn the evidence of an unregulated psychologist that resulted in her losing custody of her daughters.

For the last five years, Sarah* has only been allowed to see her children under strict supervision once a fortnight after Melanie Gill told a family court judge she was a “narcissist” who had alienated her kids from their father.

As a result, the judge ordered that the girls should live with their dad – a decision made against the advice of a social worker and despite allegations by the children that he had mistreated them.
The success of the case to disregard the evidence – which was supported by our reporting – could open the door to challenges to other decisions influenced by Gill, an unregulated expert believed to have given evidence in hundreds of family court cases.

Article continues at https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2025-10-23/mum-who-lost-custody-of-children-has-experts-evidence-overturned

My ex lied about something he didn't(despite ample evidence), finally admitted it in open court (proving he was dangerously abusive to the children and a liar) and although that helped on that particular day ,

Cafcass then conveniently forgot all about it and continued acting like he was the most wonderful model of Parenthood ever.

I've just spent the weekend comforting my daughter who ran away from her dad's house because she was so scared of him.

I’ve heard so many stories like this.

I remember my sister telling me about one of her friends, and the custody battle she was having.

One of the ‘experts’ just completely sided with her ex from the get go, ignored all bad behaviour from him, amplified perceived bad behaviour from her, and insinuated it didn’t matter what she did, as she’d be losing custody soon anyway.

She didn’t, in the end, but only because he didn’t bother turning up to court.

How is that despite even main stream media and the Government featuring stories and policies about violence against women, that the legal system seems to be so completely oblivious?

It drives me mad that so many titles are not protected - even "lawyer" isn't. TBH I think that only Clinical Psychologists registered with BPS should be allowed to be expert witnesses and only then with 10 years pqe.

I wonder if children subjected to abusive parents because of decisions like this can sue once they are adults?

Glad bannedontherun put her in her place. All miscarriages of justice bother me a lot, Post Office, Sally Clarke, the list goes on. I just hate it. This is yet another to add to thelist.

Mother vindicated after top judge overturns evidence of parental alienation expert

For the second time in six months, findings based on the evidence of unregulated psychologist Melanie Gill have been dismissed by the high court

Report here https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026-02-13/family-courts-gill-vindicated

Thought I should add here, rather than start a new thread but hope it will be noticed!

I don't understand how this unqualified person was able to command such attention. If the courts are going to take the advice of randoms they might as well start an AIBU on MN and go with that. Although i think that would be an improvement and perhaps I shouldn't give them ideas.

This is important though from Dylan's legal bod

She said it was wrong to see the failures as “entirely engineered by an expert who was not qualified because at each stage there were others who should have stood back and scrutinised the fairness of the process”. They included the Cafcass officer, the children’s guardian, the social worker, the children’s solicitor and the judge.
“Not one professional did the right thing,” she said.

Dylan seems an impressive and extraordinary young man. He should sue (they all should) and, if there's any justice get a massive amount of compensation.

Trish Barry Relph next I hope.

There's quite the cottage industry of these unregulated PA cranks. I wish I could see a legal path to making them pay for the havoc they've wrought.

She's a symptom of actual qualified people being too ready to abdicate the responsibility of making decisions in jobs they're paid to do. We see in the GI and DEI stuff. Where would Isla Bumba be without Google. All these TiM setting themselves up to, successfully, advise Government ministers ffs! As far as I can see the only qualification they have is a penchant for wearing the knickers of their female relatives. If they build it though, the grifters will come. There will always be more grifters. We need people not scared to question and not just follow the group think. Unfortunately that seems to be something actively selected against at the moment.

Justice should be served on the actual qualified people who were too willing to buy this snake oil. Although there should be some leftover for the con artists too.

Luckily, I have not had to endure this experience, but my SiL has. Despite social workers, CAFCAS her DS's counsellor all saying that any interaction with his father causes him immense distress, leading to school refusal and nightmares, the judge decided that his father could have unsupervised access, and his DM has to facilitate this, even if it meant him having to be sent screaming, if necessary, to see his father.
She was petrified that if she even said she had tried and her DS refused, if he didn't go she would be in serious trouble. I don't know if the term facilitate, in law, means to try or to make it happen.

There are probably experts here, but on the face of it, the SiL must at least take filmed recordings of these incidents. It sounds as if, in effort to please the court, what she is forcing herself to facilitate could be the abuse of the child.

Unsupervised, with the man alone to do as he wants, is a charter for abusers of all kinds. Can she apply for an urgent variation so the child meets only in an observed setting? The request could perhaps be for an initial variation "just until the child becomes less afraid, and the nightmares subside". One would hope the father would not think it a good tactic, to show his preference for exerting power, above the clear distress of his child.

It does seem distasteful to use, as evidence, a film of a terrified screaming child, but for the sake of that child, it may be necessary. "He doesn't want to go" has no particular weight, but what is described is more than a disinclination to stop playing and go to school: It sounds like real fear. What is the child scared of? What is the man doing?

It's so upsetting. I don't think I can imagine a worse thing than having to send your child to an abusive man.

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2025-01-30/psychologists-alarming-views-on-domestic-abuse-put-spotlight-on-family-court-experts

What is wrong with this woman?!

Sorry to post this here, but I think this person has seen a gap in the market, to destroy families in order to make a profit. I doubt that this person has ever been in a relationship of any kind, is probably very jealous of society as a whole. Her voice is full of anger and frustration.

Even the dog in the painting behind her is giving a wtf look!

She's utterly deranged, the fact that she was an expert witness and had the power to tear families apart is terrifying.

It is really really strange. You would think in the legal system they would be if anything over rigourous about being qualified to comment.

On the odd occassions I watch morning talk shows on tv it seems just crazy that people are allowed on to speak absolute waffle as though they were an expert. Rather than someone who used to be someone who may or may not have gone out with someone who may or may not have been famous.

But you sort of hope well people sitting at home will take this as a bit of a laugh.

And then you hear someone like this has nbeen taken seriously enough to comment on a court case involving the lives of children.

How do they sleep at night?

Yes. Gill needs to be barred from all professional bodies, and what about the judges just swallowing her rubbish?

She will effectively have destroyed children’s lives. So have certain judges.

Imagine those children having had to be forcibly removed from their mother in that way.

I mean, psychology as a profession isn't exactly like being a proper doctor is it?

Why are the courts using a profession which is still in its infancy and still gets overtaken by fashionable but stupid causes like satanic child abuse and non-binary children?

Why the bloody hell is the law giving these people house room?

18 years this woman has been allowed to create havoc in the lives of families? It is Orwellian in how state institutions and employees facilitated the damage.

She reminds me of WPATH. Isn't there a phrase for the type of circular argument where expertise is assumed but if you dig down the foundation is an accretion based on the original assumption? Like a pearl but the layers and layers of nacre are laid down round a parasite that has crept into the mantle of the courts.

Lord, she looks like a nutjob.

That article is horrifying, and its not just Gill who is causing these levels of harm.

What on earth was happening in the case where the social worker recommended that the girls live with the father for 90 days and that she was going to move in too?! How did that ever pass the sniff test?

The poor daughters in that case ended up jumping out of a first floor window before they were listened to and taken away from their father's grasp. How on earth is the judge not held accountable for inflicting that level of fear on someone?