Jonathan Herring questions the family courts’ treatment of wilful children
A relationship breaks down. Acrimony fills the air. Accusations fly. The father says the mother is stopping the children from seeing him. The mother says the children don’t want to see their father, unsurprisingly given what he has done. The lawyers wade in and it’s off to court. What is a judge to do?
Basic legal principles
The family courts have been struggling to find the correct legal solution to such cases for decades. The basic legal principles are clear. The judge must make the order which will best promote the welfare of the child. In most cases that will mean the child will spend time with both parents. There is now an impressively large number of orders available to judges in cases of disputed contact ranging from imprisonment of a parent seen to be preventing the children seeing the other parent; to an order prohibiting a parent seeing a child. Increasingly courts will rely on therapists and mediators to fashion a solution. Many experts in the field believe that in deeply conflicted cases there
