Melanie Brown, a member of the Spice Girls, has set up a petition calling for Judges to receive compulsory domestic abuse training. She believes that the Family Courts are unsafe for domestic abuse survivors and Judges need training to work with abused women and children, such as Women’s Aid, where she has been a patron of, since 2018.
What is Mel B asking for?
‘I, Melanie Brown MBE, am calling for the Judicial College to commit to compulsory ongoing training that is designed and delivered with experts. I am also calling government to be accountable for this and taking forward the recommendations in the Harm Panel Report 2020, including an urgent change that where there is domestic abuse or serious harm, we do not presume there should be contact – children’s safety always has to come first’
She further goes on to state that ‘it is not good enough, and we cannot wait any longer’.
Why is this important?
Over half of all the cases in England and Wales feature Domestic Abuse yet many Judges call the same ‘parental conflict’, says Woman’s Aid. Women who are scared for their children’s lives, knowing that abusers can inflict harm and even kill their children on contact visits, are called troublemakers or accused of being manipulative.
Judges need to have the correct outlook when dealing with such cases to ensure the safety of all parties.
If not dealt with appropriately women have informed Women’s aid that going to the Family Court can be as bad as the abuse itself.
What has Woman’s Aid done?
Women’s Aid has written two reports on the Family Courts – 29 Child Homicides and 19 Child Homicides, which all explain how children were killed because of unsafe contact decisions.
What does the Law say?
The question arises that should family law Judges take a more proactive role to understand Domestic Abuse within families that come before them within the Family Court. Is it possible that we are minimising domestic abuse to the words parental conflict?
Domestic abuse is a feature in 60 percent of child arrangement cases in England and Wales. So, what is the difference?
As defined in Practice Directions 12j (2A) Domestic Abuse is defined as;
- a) physical or sexual abuse;
(b) violent or threatening behaviour;
(c) controlling or coercive behaviour;
(d) economic abuse (see subsection (4));
(e) psychological, emotional or other abuse;
“Economic abuse” means any behaviour that has a substantial adverse effect on B’s ability to—
(a) acquire, use or maintain money or other property, or
(b) obtain goods or services.
Parental conflict is defined as ‘issue- focused, where parents have difference of opinion or disagreement but respect and emotional control themselves or it can be personal, where parents attack each other’s character or undermine each other’s parenting’.
Assessing the risk of Harm
In ‘Assessing Risk of Harm to Children and Parents in Private Law Children Cases’, it highlights the difficulties for survivors. It goes so far as to say that ‘often it takes victims of non-physical abuse a long time to acknowledge that they have experienced abuse.’ However, ‘Evidencing domestic abuse was problematic for many victims. The focus on recent incidents of physical abuse, minimising ‘historical’ allegations, was a significant barrier to providing a complete picture of abuse, especially coercive control’.
Our specialist team of advisors assist in gathering holistic approach analysing the information and taking the dedicated time to work through historical information to gather a full evidential picture for the court and for any advice.
How would this work in Court?
On the topic of evidencing domestic abuse, it should be considered that (Human Rights Act 1998, Article 6), everyone is entitled to a fair trial which is the reasoning in these cases, the Court often hold a Fact-Finding Hearing and therefore in the matter of Father v Mother [2023] ‘a Whoever makes an allegation has the burden of proving it is true. It is not for the other party to disprove the allegation. An allegation will be proven by establishing it is more likely than not to have happened. If this standard is met, the allegation will be regarded as a fact. If not, it will be wholly disregarded.’ And ‘The Court acts on evidence, not suspicions or anecdotal evidence. The evidence of the key participants (here the parents) will be central to any evaluation and should be considered with care. However, all evidence is relevant, and the Court should have regard to the wide canvas of evidence in assessing whether something happened.’
What can we do ?
As specialist providers in family law our team have undertaken additional training to identify and support in these complex cases. Our team are trained to identify the difference between parental conflict and domestic abuse. Within court proceedings our team can set out cases of Domestic Abuse and identify the risks in a parental relationship, consideration as to coercive control and the impacts this may have on contact arrangements for children.
We can make applications on behalf of survivors of abuse to make sure that they are properly supported when attending at court with support services, safety measures at court and even support in attending the court itself, with remote access available from our offices. We really do go the extra mile to make sure survivors are supported.
If you are interested in supporting the petition it can be found here:
Mel B’s family courts petition on domestic abuse training nears 25,000 signatures | Law Gazette
Lets make a change together.
