Thread by @CCChatMagazine

Assessing Risk of Harm
to Children and Parents in Private Law Children Cases
Final Report

This report is 216 pages long but well worth reading as it encapsulates the experience of so many parents who have been or are going through the #familycourts

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

“ Practice direction 12J, where implemented, is very effective in protecting children and victims of abuse. However, Nagalro understands that the implementation is hampered by the lack of resources in the courts and lack of legal advice available to the parents.” p86

PD12J

Presumption of parental involvement added to Children Act 1989 in 2014. It gave it a statutory foundation which limited possibility for further, more nuanced development of case law, and reinforced the notion that any exceptions to the norm of contact should be read narrowly.

Presumption of parental involvement:

Some legal practitioners pointed out that judges are often required to decide on relevance at the outset of a case with only limited evidence available.

If the judge decides the allegations are not relevant, THE OPPORTUNITY TO PRODUCE FURTHER EVIDENCE WILL ALSO BE LIMITED.

Respondents detailed range of reasons given by courts for not holding fact-finding hearings including:

- Applying generalised assumptions about seriousness of the allegations RATHER THAN ASSESSING actual impact of alleged abuse on the child and non-abusive parent.

- Discounting allegations of ‘emotional’ (as opposed to physical) abuse,

- Discounting so- called ‘historic’ abuse,

- Discounting abuse which did not occur in the presence of the children,

- Discounting abuse where contact HAD occurred since the last ‘incident’,

- Discounting allegations due to insufficient evidence without any opportunity for fact- finding

- Dismissing/disbelieving evidence provided

- Limiting the material the court would consider

- Accepting limited admissions to avoid the need for a fact-finding hearing.

Judicial and practitioner respondents unanimous in agreeing that resource constraints are a MAJOR impediment to the effective implementation of PD12J, including delays caused by listing pressures and the court being unable to dedicate proper time to individual cases.

Fact-finding hearings are both time-consuming and resource intensive.

IT WOULD SIMPLY BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE COURT TO HOLD A FACT-FINDING IN EVERY CASE IN WHICH DOMESTIC ABUSE IS ALLEGED WITH THE CURRENT RESOURCES.

Some submissions offered a third explanation: that judges may decide not to list a fact- finding hearing because to do so would heighten animosity between the parties. This links to the adversarial barrier identified by the panel.

A fact-finding hearing is highly adversarial, and may damage or destroy the possibilities for a cooperative relationship between the parties in co-parenting their children.

THIS ASSUME THAT SAFE CONTACT CAN OCCUR AND THAT COOPERATIVE CO PARENTING REMAINS POSSIBLE.

This: 👇👇👇

Fathers in the DVIP focus group said that although they had found the fact-finding process hard, it had had a positive impact as a means to force them to confront their behaviours and to stop denying that they were abusive.

Serious concerns about the use of Scott Schedules:

Scott Schedules are a tool designed to be used by lawyers. Litigants in person find them very difficult to comprehend and comply with, which means they are not able to represent their experience of abuse fully or accurately.

Scott Schedules appear to have become the primary mechanism for restricting the scope of fact- finding hearings. Parents may be directed to confine their Scott Schedule to a limited number of allegations (4–6 allegations appear to be commonly specified).

When the definition of domestic abuse in PD12J was amended to inc #coercivecontrol - no corresponding attention given to how this could be established to the court’s satisfaction.

PD12J simply says court should consider “what evidence is required in order to determine the existence of coercive, controlling or threatening behaviour, or of any other form of domestic abuse”.

In practice, Scott Schedules used, with little/no adaptation to facilitate evidence of emotional abuse or coercive control.