by Julie Doughty | Sep 22, 2026 | Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging
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...
by Julie Doughty | Sep 4, 2026 | Cases, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging
This week, I attended a short hearing at Cardiff Family Court about a local authority wanting to move a child under an interim care order to a school nearer where he currently lives. His mother didn’t agree, and she applied to court to object. With only a few days...
by Julie Doughty | Aug 12, 2026 | Cases, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging
In Part One of this report, I described the court hearings in Cardiff Family Court that led to HHJ Paul Hopkins KC producing a 188 page fact-finding judgment of more than 700 paragraphs. The judge concluded that most of the allegations that the father, (who I’m...
by Julie Doughty | Aug 4, 2026 | Cases, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging
During the Covid lockdown in 2020, a father of three young children experienced a mental health breakdown that led to the police being called and his being sectioned under the Mental Health Act 1983 and hospitalised for two weeks. He’d separated from his wife a few...
by Julie Doughty | Jul 30, 2026 | Comment, FCReportingWatch
A new report on research undertaken by Jaime Lindsey (Associate Professor in Medical Law, Oriel College, Oxford) and Joanna Harwood (Lecturer, Essex University Law School) makes a number of recommendations regarding private family law proceedings in England and Wales...
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