The Family Justice Response to Domestic Abuse

A new report The Family Justice Response to Domestic Abuse adds to a rapidly increasing evidence base of what is now confirmed to be deep-rooted, systematic problems in the family justice response to domestic abuse in England and Wales. This new publication reveals that many of these problems are widespread across five separate jurisdictions in Europe. Back in 2017, Women’s Aid partnered with Queen Mary University to explore survivors of domestic abuse’s experiences of the family courts through the lens of human rights. This study formed the preliminary research to this three-year investigation across six countries. Within the new report, judges, lawyers, survivors, and court-appointed experts were consulted in Spain, Italy, France, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and England and Wales to understand the family justice response to domestic abuse.

Several key themes emerged:  

1. Understandings of violence and abuse: Concerns were raised about a lack of understanding of domestic abuse amongst legal professionals, with any training related to this area not being mandatory nor transparent.
2. Experiences of the justice system: Survivors overwhelmingly felt their experiences had been made worse by the justice system, and the differing expectations and accountability for mothers compared to fathers.
3. Barriers to justice: A lack of coordination between the court systems resulted in courts not being kept up to date with relevant criminal proceedings. Other barriers included lack of access to legal aid and inequality in proceedings.
4. Parental alienation: Whilst there was an awareness of the widespread concern of its usage and origin, stakeholders reported that the terminology used is irrelevant, the weight it continues to hold in the family courts and the belief that it is primarily mothers who engage in the behaviours associated with the concept. 
5. Human rights: It was resoundingly acknowledged that the rights of survivors were rarely cited by lawyers in arguments even though they were clearly relevant. The project commissioned this animation to disseminate their findings regarding the usage of human rights arguments. 

At Women’s Aid, we have been calling on the government and all  family courts agencies to make the family court process safer for women and child survivors of domestic abuse through our Child First campaign since 2016.  It has now been over four years since the publication of the publication of the Harm Panel report. Whilst there have been some welcome developments, including provisions in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, women survivors of domestic abuse continue to tell us that the family courts are failing them and their children. The recently published Cafcass domestic abuse practice policy marks another step forward in the right direction.  

However, research publications such as this one serve as a stark reminder of how far there is still to go. We call upon the Government to urgently commit to the following recommendations: 

• Remove the presumption of parental involvement (S.1(2A) of Child Act 1989)1 without further delays to address its detrimental effects.
• Regulate experts in the family courts to ensure they have the appropriate qualifications. This would help to root out so-called parental alienation experts, who style themselves as psychologists (which is currently an unregulated term), and influence court proceedings. 
• Ensure all survivors can access legal aid in the family courts by removing the means test for them.  
• Ensure that all professionals working in the family justice system receive training on domestic abuse including a cultural change programme to introduce and embed reforms to private law children’s proceedings and help to ensure consistent implementation. Training must be provided by domestic abuse and VAWG organisations. We remain seriously concerned about the lack of meaningful engagement with the VAWG sector and therefore the quality of training on domestic abuse in the family justice system. 
• Ensure the special measures introduced in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 are available in all courts and consistently offered and implemented (e.g. screens in court, remote hearings, separate waiting rooms). 

You can read more about Women’s Aid Child First campaign here.