A 2020 report raised hopes that much-needed change was coming to the treatment of domestic abuse cases in the family courts, but what has happened since?
Writing in this week’s NLJ, Cris McCurley, partner at Ben Hoare Bell, looks at the ‘harm report’ and whether its recommendations have been implemented.
He covers the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which not only led to a rise in domestic abuse but also threw into ‘stark relief’ the consequences of a more than a decade of severe cuts. He covers a Court of Appeal judgment in four conjoined appeals last year, Re H-N and others (children) as well as a more recent case and the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.
McCurley asks, ‘are the harm report’s recommendations going to fall by the wayside due to ubiquitous lack of sufficient resources to deal with domestic abuse properly?’
