Skip to main content
Donate to the 95 years appeal
Family court faces protest over child access for abusers

PROTESTERS gathered outside the Central Family Court in London today after research highlighted the “devastating” impact of court orders on mothers and children fleeing domestic violence and abuse.

The research by See, Hear, Empower, Respond, Act (Shera) director Dr Elizabeth Dalgarno revealed on Tuesday that 43 out of 45 violent fathers in cases it had looked at had been given child contact and/or residence despite some of them having criminal convictions for domestic violence or child abuse.

Of the mothers, 39 had been accused in court of a disputed concept known as parental alienation, which has been cited as a factor in the self-inflicted deaths of women after family courts allowed fathers accused of abuse to apply for contact.

Dr Dalgarno described the concept — which refers to a child of a broken relationship supposedly being taught by one parent to hate the other — as a “handy tool for abusers” and said that its acceptance by courts is a “national scandal.”

The protest was organised by the Support not Separation (SNS) campaign coalition, which has been organising monthly pickets outside courts for seven years.

SNS said in a statement: “Every week, two to three women, many of them mothers, are murdered by a partner or ex-partner.

“Terrified children are forced to have contact or even live with abusive fathers or into largely privatised foster care or children’s homes making money from trauma.”

The coalition is calling for the abolishment of the “presumption of contact” with fathers, regardless of their violence, an end to the use of parental alienation assertions in family court cases, protection of domestic violence victims from perpetrators and opening the family courts to public scrutiny.

The Ministry of Justice said that improvements have been made to the family court system to protect domestic abuse victims, such as preventing cross-examination by abusers, expanding legal aid and allowing them to give evidence behind protective screens or by video link.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
People take part in a demonstration at Trafalgar Square in London in support of Palestine Action,  June 23, 2025
Britain / 23 June 2025
23 June 2025

Home Secretary Cooper confirms plans to ban the group and claims its peaceful activists ‘meet the legal threshold under the Terrorism Act 2000’

President Donald Trump speaks as a flag pole is installed on the South Lawn of the White House, June 18, 2025, in Washington
Iran-Israel War / 18 June 2025
18 June 2025

US president says his nation might join forces with Israel in attacking Iran

Similar stories
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: Roheez Khan, left, and Mustaq Ahmed,
Features / 15 March 2025
15 March 2025
ANN CZERNIK concludes her three-part series on the hidden scale of child sexual exploitation in Britain