Domestic Abuse Victims in Family Law Courts

Debate between Seema Malhotra and Angela Smith

Thursday 15th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech. I have been struck by a number of constituents and by other people whom I have met through my work in the House who have said that, as victims, when they have gone into the courts, including family courts, they have felt that they have not been believed and that those involved in the judiciary do not fully understand the patterns of domestic abuse and what to believe and who to believe in the courts. Does she agree that an important part of this is the training of the judiciary and the updating of the training to reflect changes in the law?

[Angela Smith]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

I wish now to ask a few questions. What exactly are the failures of the family courts, given the legislative tools at their disposal? Why is it proving so difficult for the family courts to tackle this issue? Why is it so hard to put children first? I suggest that there are two major reasons. First, there is the ongoing assumption that men who are abusive towards women can nevertheless still be good fathers. That belief—that myth—is unbelievably enduring and flies in the face of the available evidence. Research indicates that there are many serious, negative impacts on children arising from domestic abuse, including children becoming aggressive or, conversely, over compliant. They can become withdrawn, anxious and fearful. One study also found that more than 34% of under-18s who had lived with domestic violence had also been abused or neglected by a parent or guardian. I do not see why that should surprise anybody. Surely, this outdated, discredited way of thinking has no place in our family courts. Surely, given the ongoing incidence of violence against children and the frequent link with domestic abuse, we need effectively to eradicate this cultural legacy from our family courts.

Secondly, there is an ongoing failure on the part of the statutory agencies and the family court judiciary to understand that domestic abuse frequently involves coercive control; abuse is about power and control. That is why it is not surprising that fathers who beat up women can also abuse children.

Physical injury is not the only manifestation of abuse and it is in that context that the courts themselves can become a tool in the armoury of a controlling abuser. In other words, when separation occurs and a woman removes herself and her children from an intolerable situation, the abusive parent frequently uses family court proceedings as a means of continuing his attempt to control and coerce.

This brings me back to Claire’s story. Her abuser exercised the ultimate control over her. Not only did he drag her to the family court for unsupervised access to his children, he went on to murder her children. In doing that, he has, with one awful, heartbreaking criminal act, exercised control over Claire for the rest of her life. That should give us pause for thought. Never again will Claire’s life be the same, as her two boys have gone. We all feel her pain, and we have a duty to act.

That is why I have worked with Women’s Aid and other MPs to secure this debate today. I pay tribute to Women’s Aid and the all-party group on domestic violence, which have produced reports that reflect on what needs to be done. I do not have time to go through their recommendations in detail. Suffice it to say that they relate to measures designed to put children first, to implement properly the legal framework and Practice 12, including the professional training of court staff and the judiciary as my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) mentioned, and to put in place independent national oversight of the implementation of Practice 12. They also include practical measures, such as dedicated, safe waiting rooms for vulnerable witnesses and separate entrance and exit times.

Of course we all want to see reform of the Government’s legal aid changes to ensure that representation in the family courts is adequate and sufficient to avoid the current situation, which sees abused women cross-examined by their abusers. I know that the Minister, who has written to me separately, has indicated that the president of the family division has asked Mr Justice Cobb to review practice direction 12 to see whether amendments are needed, but we need more than that. The public needs more than that, as is indicated by the 38 Degrees petition, which has now been signed by more than 33,000 people. We need to see: the Ministry of Justice take action to ensure that the legal framework is properly implemented; practical changes to the ways the courts work; resources dedicated to ensuring the professional training of court staff and the judiciary; and the Government indicating that they will do all that is necessary to improve the relationships and the information sharing between statutory agencies and between those agencies and the family courts. There was a huge delay in the cases of Claire, Jack and Paul.

Above all else, for Claire’s sake and for the sake of all vulnerable women, we need the Government to send out a very clear message. By agreeing to act on today’s motion, the Government would be sending out a clear message that domestic abuse will be tackled, that it will be dealt with in all its forms, and that we will not allow our children to be harmed by it.

Jack and Paul must never be forgotten. Claire wanted their names to be used in the serious case review, but the authorities refused, preferring to refer to them as P2. Jack and Paul were not P2; they were two dearly loved boys whose lives were snatched away from them by a violent father. Let us make sure today that Jack and Paul will never be forgotten. Let us support the motion on the Order Paper.