A 12 year old boy (who I’ll call ‘Jon’ – not his real name) had been subject to private law proceedings for more than three years. In a final hearing before HHJ Gibbons at Oxford Family Court this summer, the Cafcass guardian said that Jon had been failed by the family justice system and that the whole family had been damaged by proceedings. The judge commented that the proceedings had led to a focus on conflict and not on resolution; attempts to resolve the conflict ‘had not only failed but also served to fuel it.
Jon and his father had been brought together by a court order for more than 30 supervised contact sessions prior to the final hearing. However, Jon spent these looking in the other direction and would not speak to his dad.
The situation was a tragedy because there were no safeguarding risks to justify a severance of Jon’s relationship with his father and, unless this was resolved, said the judge, Jon would grow up suffering long-term consequences.
Court application and outcome
Jon’s father had first applied to court in February 2023, seeking an order that Jon ‘spend time’ with him under a child arrangements order (CAO). There were at least nine hearings over three years, including a finding of fact hearing back in August 2023. At the final hearing, nearly three years after that, the parents reached agreement to undertake systemic family therapy with a view to restoring Jon’s relationship with his father. This followed a recommendation by the guardian in her final report but, in her evidence, she said that the therapy should have been undertaken at the beginning of the court case, not years later.
HHJ Gibbons didn’t make a CAO for Jon to see his father, but she did make a specific issue order that Jon’s mother must make him available to attend systemic family therapy as agreed between the parties, and ensure that he is actively and positively encouraged to engage with such therapy; she must also ‘use her best endeavours’ to ensure that her parents (Jon’s grandparents) reinforce such encouragement. (A judge can’t directly order anyone to actually go to therapy.)
I attended six hearings as a legal blogger in this case over 12 months.
Although Cafcass and an independent social worker had both reported in June 2025 that Jon was suffering emotional harm by losing contact with his father, at the final hearing a year later, the Cafcass view was that direct contact was not in Jon’s best interests. As Jon’s own lawyer said. ‘He just wants this all to stop’.
The proceedings had been conducted by a District Judge (DJ Buckley-Clarke) from 2023, but were transferred to a Circuit Judge in October 2025 as part of the current process of lengthy proceedings being transferred upwards. This is part of an attempt to address backlogs before family courts in the south east of England can move to the new ‘Child Focused’ (previously ‘Pathfinder’) model. I say more about this at the end of this report.
History 2022-2025
When Jon was eight years old (in 2022), his parents separated acrimoniously. (I’ll call the parents Martin and Jane, again not their real names.) Leading up to the separation, Jon witnessed his parents arguing and shouting, and things being thrown around rooms. Jane and Jon went to live with Jane’s parents. At first Jon was expressing a natural affection for his father (demonstrated in evidence – some light-hearted and eager voicemail messages from him in 2022 that I heard played to the court). However, after about three months, Jane had told Martin he needed to ‘move on’ because Jon didn’t want to see him and those wishes should be respected. In February 2023, Martin applied to court for a CAO, having not seen or heard from Jon, although he wrote to him weekly. He was anxious about Jon being home-schooled and isolated. Jane told Martin that because he was ‘taking them to court’, Jon was living in a constant state of fear that he would have to see his father.
At the fact-finding hearing held by DJ Buckley-Clarke in August 2023, six months after Martin had put in his application, the judge found that Martin had been emotionally abusive and threatening towards Jane and Jon, but that these findings were not a bar to safe contact. They helped to explain the context of Jane’s subsequent behaviour and Jon’s expressed views. The judge also found that Jane had acted in ways that increased Jon’s fear of his father and that the family dynamics were such that Jon was living in a household where all the adults held a very negative view of Martin. The judge ordered a section 7 welfare report from Cafcass.
It took another six months, until February 2024, for the section 7 report to emerge. This concluded that Jon was suffering emotional harm in the household of his mother and maternal grandparents and was showing extreme distress that was not related to the findings of abuse made by DJ Buckley-Clarke. By this point, Jon’s last experiences of Martin’s behaviour were 18 months earlier.
In September 2024, an independent social worker, Jeffrey Baker, was appointed to consider whether Jon could be reintroduced to his father.
I didn’t start watching these hearings until June 2025 and I can’t work out from the documents I’ve seen exactly why matters dragged on for so long after the judge had concluded that contact would be safe.
Hearings 2025-2026
At the hearing I attended in June 2025, the Cafcass officer gave evidence of her concerns about the environment in which Jon was living being hostile to Martin, and the ways in which Jon (then 11) spoke ‘with the voice of an adult’. She was especially concerned by an ‘adult-like’ expression on his face when she talked to him about the value of his father’s cultural heritage and Jon said ‘Disgusting’. The ISW, Jeffrey Baker, agreed, and reported that while Jane said she supported contact, in truth she didn’t. Jon had been given the impression that the ISW was employed by Martin and so didn’t view him as a neutral professional. I have a note that the district judge said she would write to Jon to explain the ISW role, so I assume that happened. However, Jane didn’t get on with the ISW [EDITED for clarification 7 October 2026] and she didn’t keep up appointments for Jon. As no progress was being made, the ISW had to withdraw from the case.
In July 2025, another ISW, Trish Barry Relph was appointed to progress reunification work between Jon and Martin. She supervised weekly contact sessions between them in her office premises. There were apparently 32 sessions before the final hearing. Jon objected to being driven to these by Jane, and although both he and Jane got on with Ms Barry-Relph, Jane would not go into the room where Martin was waiting and Jon wouldn’t speak to him. All the evidence was that Martin behaved appropriately in the sessions but Jon never appeared relaxed.
In September 2025, Jon was joined as a party and the Cafcass officer was appointed as a rule 16.4 guardian. This meant he had his own lawyer from that point.
Final hearing – June 2026
There was a difference of professional opinion between the ISW who’d been supervising contact, Ms Barry-Relph, and the guardian. Ms Barry-Relph said that Jane wasn’t giving Jon emotional permission to engage with Martin. Although the guardian was the same Cafcass officer who’d done all the section 7 reports, she was now saying that Jon needed a break from court proceedings and from the contact sessions. She recommended an end to the supervised contact and that an ‘agreed joint narrative’ be prepared and given to Jon so that he could understand what had happened. This would include both parents acknowledging they had caused Jon harm and apologising to him for the mistakes they had made. The guardian further recommended that all three then undertake systemic family therapy. The ISW also recommended a ‘narrative’, but that the contact sessions continue and a psychologist (she named Dr Willemsen) be instructed to make a holistic family assessment that would identify and break down the barriers to Jon renewing his relationship with Martin.
Jane said that she wanted the proceedings to end for Jon’s sake, and also because she felt constantly nervous of being scrutinised and judged. By the date of the final hearing, Jon was beginning to show some resentment toward Jane for ‘making him go’ to contact. The practitioners predicted that his relationship with Jane was going to deteriorate if contact continued.
During the hearing, Martin offered to reduce contact to fortnightly – this would show Jon he had been listened to but that Martin hadn’t abandoned him. He also explicitly apologised for the effect his behaviour had had on Jane.
Interestingly, Martin and Jane both had their cameras on throughout the final hearing (held remotely) and would have been able to see each other as clearly as I could see both of them. This indicated to me that Jane had not asked for special measures to be screened from Martin in the final hearing, although when I observed earlier hearings they attended in person, she had been screened.
The hearing took place over three days and Jane did shift a little between days 1 and 2, I thought possibly as a result of seeing and hearing Martin as a real person, instead of via the lawyers. She indicated a willingness to attend the therapy that was being recommended. The guardian was to work with them on the ‘agreed narrative’. I often hear recommendations for an agreed narrative in cases lately, but I don’t know how long Cafcass is able to keep working on one of these after their role has been terminated by a final hearing. Understandably, Martin’s lawyers argued that if contact stopped now, Jon would think Martin had ‘walked away’ but it can be hoped that the narrative, guided by the guardian, will present a more nuanced version.
The contact sessions
It’s hard to imagine that any child would want to give up half of every Saturday travelling for an hour’s round trip to spend 30 minutes in a room with his father and a social worker, while his mother sat outside, refusing to take her son into the room herself.
In his evidence, Martin said that he would prefer contact to be taking the form of sharing ‘fun activities’ and it wasn’t clear to me why this couldn’t happen, as there were no safeguarding concerns.
There were several references during the final hearing to Jon’s perception of a lack of any explanation about why he ‘had’ to go to the weekly sessions. He complained that everyone said this was good for him, although he didn’t want it. Presumably, the guardian and the ISW had tried to explain in a child-centred way that these formal sessions were only intended to be short term to reassure him that his father wouldn’t cause him any harm. HHJ Gibbons had met Jon in person before the final hearing so had no doubt reassured him that his welfare was the court’s paramount consideration. The evidence was that Martin always behaved in a gentle and appropriate way during contact, nevertheless Jon spent the sessions in silence, looking away. This must have been very painful for Martin, but he remained hopeful and willing to keep paying the ISW to supervise the meetings.
Although DJ Buckley-Clarke had ordered the ISW fees to be paid 50-50, Jane had paid about £4,000 and Martin had paid about £27,000 in total. The judgment by HHJ Gibbons in the final hearing stated an expectation that the cost of the family therapy (with someone new) would be contributed to by each parent.
Legal blogging
I managed to attend most of the listed hearings over the past year by remote video link (although the links weren’t always sent to me). The three-day final hearing was conducted completely online. The judge said this was because there weren’t enough court rooms available for her to accommodate the hearing physically, although I don’t think any of the parties objected.
HHJ Gibbons mentioned being ‘seriously over-listed’ and did appear to be double-booking everything. Oxford Family Court is the most difficult I have ever dealt with as a legal blogger. Almost all my emails were ignored, although I did at one point make a complaint and received an apology. That apology wasn’t followed through by any noticeable improvement in responding.
This is the court office’s auto-reply; it says that you’ll get a reply within ten days but:
HMCTS staff are working under extreme pressure due to lack of people and the current urgent need to triage, list, vacate and re-list cases. Your enquiry will be addressed, but it will take longer if they have to deal with emails asking for updates.
I wonder if a ‘lack of people’ is an appropriate statement to make on behalf of the Ministry of Justice, and may even call into doubt that litigants’ Article 6 rights to a fair trial are being observed. I kept my emails to court to an absolute minimum, because obviously the court staff have enough on their hands with correspondence from parties and their lawyers. Dealing with a reporter in the mix was yet another task for them. Jane wasn’t legally represented in earlier hearings, which adds to a blogger’s difficulties, but overall, both parents’ lawyers were helpful in keeping me updated.
Child focused courts
We know that the progress to Child Focused Courts in the south east of England is slow, but this case didn’t give me confidence that the backlogs will be cleared anytime soon.
In a way, this case might have been described as ‘child-focused’ because the major issue was that Jon refused to engage with his father, while his mother said that Jon’s views must be respected. The evidence was that throughout the proceedings, all of Jon’s expressed wishes and feelings and his behaviour demonstrated that he simply did not want to know his father. However, his rejection – and the way he expressed it – had been viewed by the Cafcass officer and two ISWs as evidence of psychological damage. Perhaps an early Child Impact Report by Cafcass might have seen a way through?
HHJ Gibbons made a number of references to reservations she had about the loss of judicial continuity when the case was transferred to her from DJ Buckley-Clarke after 2 ½ years. Although she added ‘hindsight is a wonderful thing’ to some of her observations, I had the impression she found the length of time the case had been before the court quite puzzling.
Note: This is the second case I’ve reported on where the same ISW spent many months trying to persuade an adolescent boy to have meaningful contact with an estranged parent. The other case I wrote about was in Exeter Family Court – a failed reunification plan. Ms Barry-Relph is also featured in this Guardian article by Lara Fiegel.
Image: thanks Wilfredor, Wikimedia Commons
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This case is another example of how destructive has been the move to pretend parental alienation doesn’t exist. This case is one in which the child was being alienated from one of his parents by his other parent and her parents (the child’s grandparents). The case-law over decades has said this kind of situation is an emergency and requires urgent intervention to protect the child’s relationship with the other parent; but nowadays this almost never happens: a situation made even worse by the Family Justice Council’s guidance on alienating behaviours and the Cafcass guidance on domestic abuse. Those documents mean that any allegations of domestic abuse have to be investigated first, which takes typically 2 years in the South-Eastern Circuit area – during which a huge amount of damage can be done to the child’s relationship with one parent. As in this case, the court and Cafcass, at the very end of the case, bemoan, with hindsight, that stronger action was not taken earlier to protect the child’s previously good relationship with both parents. Yet no thought is then given to the way that the court’s processes and practices need to change in order for this to happen in practice.
So this kind of disaster for a child will just keep happening again and again. Politicians and the FJC listen to the shrill voices of bad faith pressure groups, supported by academic ‘research’ that seeks to support their agenda. There are too few people in this policy space who are people of good faith who want to develop a genuinely evidence-based private law family justice system that actually focuses on protecting children by getting therapeutic social workers into families early to help work out what is really happening and start sorting things out (as would happen in a public law case).
The fundamental problem with the system is that it pays lip-service to the fact that delay is harmful for the child, and yet has no sense of urgency about cases where a child who previously had a strong bond with both parents is not having any meaningful relationship with one of them. Indeed, the family court often causes the problem by ordering (usually on Cafcass advice) cessation of a child’s direct contact with a parent for many months, or even several years, pending the slow progression of the case through the court system. The vast majority of the public would consider it a matter of huge concern that a child isn’t able to see one of their parents for many months, let alone 2 or 3 years, in circumstances where there are no proven safeguarding concerns. But the family justice system, in truth, views such cases as low priority in practice. Unless and until this changes, outcomes will continue to be poor, and parents who are determined to damage their child’s relationship with the other parent will be able to do so, with the other parent left without any effective remedy.
Thanks for this comment. It is a very sad case. The worst delays weren’t in the investigation of the allegations. As noted in the post, there was a fact-finding hearing in August 2023. However, the matter then carried on for three years. The district judge did make findings about the mother and her family influencing the child and she did find that his rejection was unjustified. The court didn’t order a cessation of contact at that stage – contact was encouraged by the orders until the very final hearing.
This was a long running case and difficult to distill into a short readable post. There was a lot of discussion about alienation but I didn’t have the space to go into all the detail. I didn’t mean to give the impression that this wasn’t pursued by the father’s lawyers. So although the delays are very troubling, this wasn’t because anyone was pretending alienation cannot exist.
With regard the future practice, the answer may lie in the move to Child Focused Courts, if a child has an opportunity to talk to a Cafcass officer much earlier.
Its been the same story for thirty years. If mother wants to weaponise her own child all the way to alienation, the courts will allow, indeed encourage, her to.
[Edited for legal reasons]
Less than 2% of fathers’ CAO’s are enforced. Mothers get legal aid if they falsely claim DV.
The UK family courts (and cafcass) hate fathers and children. All the statistics prove it.
Thank you for your comment. We’re not sure where that 2% statistic comes from.
Preaching to the converted on this blog, but it’s worth affirming that facilitating journalist requests to attend a hearing is (or should be) as much of a priority for court staff as everything else they do to ensure the listed hearing is effective. We must never assume that it’s only a ‘nice to have’ if the resources are available.
I agree, although with this particular court, I was concerned that it wasn’t just reporters who were receiving a strong message that no one would read their emails.
I am Jeffrey Baker, the ISW who worked on the case. I would just like to correct one factual error here. Otherwise it is a good account of something that I am glad was documented by your project. I am in full support of transparency in the family court. I obviously cannot say much about my work on the case. I would just like to say that I did not ask to withdraw from the case. The mother essentially refused to work with me. She did not say that outright but she simply would not take up any appointment time or date that I offered and the court eventually decided that the situation was untenable because of this breakdown in communication. I would have absolutely have continued to work with ‘Jon’ if I had been given the opportunity. I would be grateful if you amended your otherwise compelling and important narrative of this case to reflect that I did not give up. Many thanks, Jeffrey Baker
Apologies, I took this from the final judgment that says the first ISW withdrew because they concluded that the mother was not committed to the court endorsed plan. I didn’t want to give the impression in my report that the court hadn’t valued your input (as clearly they had). I shouldn’t have given the impression you gave up, either. There was a lot of material to condense into a readable length. The post will be amended.
Thank you for your positive comments.