A 13 year old boy was refusing to obey High Court orders that he spend time with his mother following his parents’ separation. After three years of failed attempts to persuade him to see her, the court asked the Tipstaff’s office to enforce an order that he be collected from his home with his father and taken to spend four weeks with his mother in a ‘protective placement’. (The Tipstaff is an officer of the High Court, based at the Royal Courts of Justice, who can be called on by the court to enforce orders and warrants in England and Wales.) The boy refused to go with them and claimed he was physically assaulted by the court-appointed officers.
Another remarkable feature of this case is that the boy read about the independent social worker (ISW), Ms Trish Barry-Relph, who’d been appointed to facilitate contact, through publication of earlier judgments by Mrs Justice Lieven. That case involved a failed reunification plan involving two girls of a similar age to himself. He then used some of the information he’d picked up online to support his dislike of Ms Barry-Relph and her recommendations.
I followed this unusual case in Exeter Family Court, as a legal blogger, before HHJ Liz Ingham during spring and early summer and am now reporting, following a final hearing where child arrangements were eventually agreed between the parents (with a great deal of work by their respective lawyers) and orders made, although there still seemed little likelihood of the boy himself agreeing in the near future. I will call the boy ‘William’ (not his real name).
Background
William’s parents had met as students in the UK and married after returning to their home country in south-east Asia. When William was eight, his parents divorced and he was made subject to a type of joint custody order, although with all the costs of his upkeep and long-term education to be paid by his father (F). He spent time with each parent. When he was nine, it was agreed that he would move to England with F to gain the benefits of education in a fee-paying UK school and eventually attend UK higher education. F’s parents pay his school fees and bought a large house for F and William to live in. F remarried in the UK and all three shared that house. It was also agreed that F was to pay the travel costs that would allow William to regularly see and stay with his mother (M) either where she lives, or when she visited the UK.
There was a good deal of dispute between M and F in the evidence about the nature of their marriage and relationship and to what extent M had willingly fallen in with the plan for the rather sudden move to England.
In early 2022, M was unhappy about the limited time she had managed to spend with William when she came over to see him. She applied to the English court for a child arrangements order for contact in the UK and in her home country. F maintained that he wanted William to remain connected to the maternal family and was encouraging him to keep in touch with and visit M. However, F said he could not himself return to his home country for the time being. William got on very well at school and seems to have developed a fear of M making him return to the family’s home country.
The case lasted for nearly four years, with five separate attempts made by the court, involving a range of professionals, to put the proposed contact arrangements into operation. I began attending hearings quite late in proceedings but the judge and the lawyers were all very helpful in negotiating the Transparency Order and providing me with documents that set out the issues.
History of attempted reunification
In a fact-finding judgment back in December 2023, HHJ Ingham had summed up the problem as follows:
What is clear, very sadly, is that [William] has an extremely negative attitude towards his mother, which he has displayed. He denigrates the mother. He displays no remorse or shame when he is rude to her. He has fully identified his position with the father’s and dismisses the mother. He has age-inappropriate views and he has used extremely adult language about his mother, such that she is narcissistic, gaslighting, and he has a narrative about his mother which mirrors the complaints that the father raises against her. All parties seem to be in agreement that the reasons which are put forward effectively for [William]’s rejection of his mother are not really sufficient to explain those extremely negative attitudes.
The fact-finding judgment is lengthy (91 paragraphs over 19 pages) and detailed. The judge found that both M and F genuinely loved William and had a lot to offer him but both had behaved in ways that were unhelpful and sometimes very damaging to him emotionally. She observed that both F and M were hostile and dismissive toward each other in their oral evidence. The judge was very troubled by evidence of various phone calls and messages between the parents over the years, observing that the parents had ‘a complete inability to think about the impact of their arguments and their disputes on their son.’
Although no one has ever fully explained William’s rejection of M, perhaps the judge gets closest to what happened where she said:
It is very difficult for a child to hold two people who express these extreme views about each other in their heart and manage that. It is no surprise to me that [William] has chosen to remove himself absolutely from this conflict which he has heard raging over his head and which he has experienced through prolonged phone calls. He has made a psychological choice to align with what feels to him to be the safest place at the moment, which is, “Okay, I am with dad. I am here. That is the safest option. I have got reasons that I have focused on for a long time why I do not trust mum. I am going to stick with this option because I cannot psychologically hold these two people in the same place and manage my life psychologically.” That is the position he is now in and it is really important that he is placed into a position where he can hold those two people in his life at the same time.
HHJ Ingham described M’s view that F had ‘malign and deliberate intent to remove [William] from her life’. Although the judge didn’t find that F had deliberately alienated William from M, she did conclude he had constantly undervalued and undermined their relationship. He had induced a sense in William that M was unsafe. The judge (and M’s lawyers) expressed concerns that William, a child of ten at the start of the case, believed that he was an equal partner of one in three and had the casting vote in decision making, and that F was passive in allowing him to believe that.
After the fact finding, in spring 2024, the court appointed Ms Barry-Relph as an independent expert to facilitate contact. Her fees were to be shared equally by M and F. She was to advise on a planned and structured reunification programme to enable William to have a relationship with M, which could include consideration of a short or long term residential stay in England; the mechanics and structure of a proposed course of action; and given William’s expressed resistance, what techniques and measures could be used to overcome his refusal to see M; and the impact of the measures proposed on him in the short, medium and longer term. At that point it was also separately agreed that William be assessed for ASD; a diagnosis of autism followed in autumn 2024..
William and Ms Barry-Relph
It should be emphasised here that William’s statements (as quoted in the court documents – we haven’t seen his account first-hand) about the previous case he’d read about online aren’t entirely accurate. The reports I’ve read by Ms Barry-Relph about William are hard to follow, but in one she says that William and his friends looked her up on Google and then told people that ‘she had lost her humanity with a child who was reported as suicidal’. The actual words used by Lieven J about humanity in Warwickshire County Council v The Mother & Ors[2023] EWHC 399 (Fam) were: ‘Somewhere in the history of this case we have lost our humanity’ [para 72]. By ‘we’, Lieven J was referring to an overall pattern of the treatment of the mother and the children; she was not referring directly to the ISW. Although one of the children in that case had been reported as self harming and suicidal because she was removed from home, that issue was not directly attributed by the judge to the ISW nor any individual. The judge did however say that ‘the Reunification Plan was misguided and the role of Ms Barry-Relph unhelpful’. It’s usual when an ISW is appointed as an expert witness for them to be named in the judgment. We wrote about the Warwickshire case in March 2023. In one of her reports about William, Ms Barry-Relph wrote:
It is recommended that father and stepmother undertake the work with Dr. [redacted] in relation to [William’s] slanderous statements in [redacted] school to pupils and staff about Trish Barry-Relph causing a child to commit suicide. As per the court order [F] is to support [William] to engage with Trish Barry-Relph moving forward to the protective placement.
Somewhat confusingly, Ms Barry-Relph’s reports are written partly in the first and partly in the third person (and occasionally even in the second person) but it seems that she was objecting that William had been allowed to quote inaccurately about her from online sources. I couldn’t work out quite what she was recommending be done about it though, as the paragraph above is not further explained.
Interestingly, we can see here some unintended consequences of naming professionals in judgments – that readers of William’s age won’t fully understand the meaning in a judgment written in a standard style. Lieven J is unlikely to have envisaged children reading and mis-quoting her judgment. It was notable at the final hearing of William’s case how much care HHJ Ingham was taking to ensure he was to receive an age-appropriate letter from her, explaining her decisions, in a timely way. She had personally met William twice, which would have helped her compose that letter.
The incident with the Tipstaff’s officers
In early 2025, M came over to England as part of the protective plan recommended by the ISW. M was staying not far from William’s home in accommodation that was to be shared between herself, William and William’s therapist for four weeks. The ISW would be on call but not staying in the household. F had agreed to this but everyone was aware that he didn’t use a very authoritative manner with William, although F and his wife were being ‘coached’ in how to get William to understand the plan. The court therefore asked for assistance by the Tipstaff.
Two officers who work in the Tipstaff’s office attended William’s home to explain that they were going to accompany him to see his mother. F had already explained this to William and confirmed that it was his wish that William go with them. However William told them M would starve and torture him and that he wouldn’t go. The officers tried to explain that he would be safe and that everything would be appropriately supervised. A colleague of the ISW was also present to help, although not Ms Barry-Relph herself. After some hours, and William becoming distressed and having a possible seizure on the floor, the Tipstaff’s officers discussed matters further with F, consulted their office, and said they would leave. One of them reported in a statement to the court that she/he had touched William on the shoulder at a point he was lying face down on a sofa. F recalled that someone had put a hand on William’s shoulder. However William said that he’d been ‘dragged and grabbed’ by the officers. The structured plan therefore didn’t go ahead. F took William to A&E where he was diagnosed as likely to have suffered a panic attack. He recovered fairly quickly the same day.
HHJ Ingham confirmed at the April hearing that it had been agreed that no physical force was to be used by the Tipstaff and that this point now needed clarification. She therefore requested a statement from the Tipstaff, explaining this was for the record only, not intended as an investigation. It seemed that all the parties accepted the facts as explained in the statement supplied before the final hearing, although on the other hand, no one seemed to want to interrogate William’s version.
The ISW report prepared after the Tipstaff’s involvement identified William’s actions and beliefs about M as attributable to F’s own position and his failure to fully engage with efforts at reunification. She recommended a range of options including a s 37 investigation, an interim care order, a ‘stepping stone’ placement and a transfer of residence of William to M in their home country. (However, M told her lawyers not to pursue the latter as she regrettably felt that it was unrealistic to expect William to move to south-east Asia at that time.) At the hearing, M’s lawyers argued for a further fact-finding hearing and consideration of a referral to children’s services under section 37 of The Children Act 1989, on the basis that the court should consider making a care or supervision order. F’s lawyers argued that a welfare hearing only was now required. The guardian did not support the idea of a s 37 investigation or further fact finding. The judge considered the practical aspects of the suggestions before her and concluded that s 37 was not appropriate and more fact finding would achieve nothing but delay. She concluded that every possible option for restoring William’s relationship with his mother had been thoroughly explored.
The final hearing and decisions
The final hearing was listed for three days in June, to include oral evidence by Ms Barry-Relph. The judge acknowledged that there were some slight differences in the various accounts of the Tipstaff incident but no one was taking issue with the statement from his office. She found that there’d been no disproportionate action on their part. By Day 1, M and F’s lawyers had managed to reach agreement on most of the terms in a draft order and it was decided that Ms Barry-Relph could be dismissed without giving oral evidence. I therefore didn’t hear from her directly apart from reading some of her reports.
The Cafcass guardian had been unhappy with the ISW reports, saying they were unfairly dismissive of other professionals and lacked detailed practical planning. This, she said, had resulted in prolonging the proceedings at significant financial and emotional cost to the parties. She wrote that Ms Barry-Relph had completely lost sight of William, for example, ignoring the diagnosis of ASD and focusing on F’s behaviour. The guardian had concluded in March that sadly, the window of opportunity for reunifying and his mother had closed – repeated efforts at forced reunification were doing him more damage than he was likely to suffer from the emotional harm of losing his relationship with his mother. The proceedings should end and the family should seek therapeutic support separate from court in the hope of eventual resolution. The guardian’s evidence reflects the significant disagreements between the ISW and the other professionals, which she doesn’t expand on as she was trying to avoid further polarisation. The later ISW reports were not as diplomatic as the guardian’s. For example, Ms Barry-Relph accused the other therapeutic professionals of being aligned with F to unwittingly sabotage the protective placement plan. F’s final evidence was strongly critical of what he viewed as the ISW creating additional hostility and expense (her fees at this point totalling £70,000).
HHJ Ingham concluded that the court had fully grappled with all the actions it could take in a situation where one child did not have a relationship with one parent. The court had not achieved what it had set out to do and this must be devastating for M. It was essential that William knows that all the adults have made all the efforts they could to safeguard his wellbeing and why this had taken so long.
The final order recorded that William’s rejection of M was unjustified and that safeguarding concerns he had raised about her were unsubstantiated. However it was in his best interests for the proceedings to conclude. The only sticking point where the judge had to impose a term of the order was the amount that F was to pay to cover M travelling to and staying in the UK – they couldn’t agree on that. The judge arrived at a figure of £8000 annually to cover two visits per year. Other terms of the lengthy order included specific details of indirect contact to include weekly updates; future therapy and health arrangements; F to ensure that William knew when M was coming to the UK to see him etc.
Comment
It seems extraordinary that an intelligent, well educated adolescent would completely refuse to respect a court order, while everyone he knew was telling him it was for his own good. However, it occurred to me that there was no real sanction on William, although if he’d been an adult, his actions may have been in contempt of court. He couldn’t be fined or detained in proceedings where his welfare was paramount, even if all the adults did believe his welfare was best served by maintaining a relationship with his mother.
Following the Tipstaff incident, the judge and some of the practitioners mentioned that William might suffer psychologically in the long term from being allowed an age-inappropriate level of power in decision making. However, I’m not certain he would be feeling he had much power during the four years he’d been fought over, during a series of decisions that overrode his expressed wishes and feelings, at the cost (between the two parents) of about a million pounds.
The judgment envisages that William’s perceptions may in time become more measured and that now the pressure is off, he will continue with therapy with one of the professionals he does get on with. The hope is that he will begin to see matters in a more balanced way and feel it is safe to resume some connection with his mother’s side of the family. Otherwise there would be no practical reason to include so much detail about M’s visits in the order. However, there seemed to me little prospect of his shifting his mindset in the near future.
The guardian has recommended publication of the judgment as a learning opportunity for lawyers and other professionals. This was supported by M and I don’t know if explicitly addressed by F. However, he seems not to have objected. If the judgment is eventually published we will update this post.
Image: photo of model. Thanks PxHere
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