A recent case sends a warning to any parent who suspects the other of sexual abuse, as Jonathan Herring reports
Penelope Leach’s new book, Family Breakdown, contains much which is familiar to family lawyers. She writes that family breakdown harms children and that to combat this, parents must engage in mutual parenting on separation, enabling and encouraging each other in their parental roles after divorce. Parents who fail to do this can cause their children serious harm. Had she wanted to cite a case to support her thesis, Re W (A Child) [2014] EWCA Civ 772 could have used. At one level, the decision is one where the undermining of one parent by the other was recognised as posing a serious risk of harm to the child. Yet it will be suggested here, that the case highlights another major issue facing family law.
In Re W (A Child) the mother appealed against an interim care order under the Children Act 1989, s 38(1), made in the context of a fierce dispute over contact. The order was made by HJ Cardinal and
