Nothing else will do…?

by Annie Surviving Safeguarding | Jul 18, 2019 | Cases, Comment, FCReportingWatch

This is a post by Annie, one half of our Project Coordination team, author of Surviving Safeguarding; a parents’ guide to the child protection process and a birth parent who has been through several sets of concurrent public and private law proceedings. Annie now...

How does the family court treat domestic abuse?: A snapshot (continued)

by Sophie Smith Holland | Jul 11, 2019 | Analysis, Cases, FCReportingWatch

This is a post from Sophie Smith-Holland, who tweets as @SSmithHolland. The question of how the Family Court deals with domestic abuse has had a huge amount of public and media attention recently. Concerns have been raised that the system is placing children and...

Father’s Day Revenge? Female perpetrated domestic abuse, homicide and suicide

by Annie Surviving Safeguarding | Jul 6, 2019 | Analysis, Cases, FCReportingWatch, Notorious

On the 17th of June 2018, a father made an anxious call to Kent Police after his ex-partner failed to return their child after a period of unsupervised contact which had been agreed by the family court. Very sadly, the following morning, the Police found the bodies of...

The President’s Expert Witness Working Group Symposium: in which lawyers (for once) were not the loudest voices in the room

by Malvika Jaganmohan | Jul 6, 2019 | Analysis, FCReportingWatch, Transparency News

This is a post from Malvika Jaganmohan, one of our new contributors, who tweets as @MalvikaJaganmo1. A collective of medical and legal professionals descended on the Royal Courts of Justice on 4thJuly 2019 to discuss the current shortage of medical experts in the...

‘Custody fights blight four in ten break ups’ – A word of caution?

by Kelly Reeve | Jul 2, 2019 | Analysis, Comment, FCReportingWatch

This is a first post from Kelly Reeve, new contributor, who tweets as @s37CA89research. Kelly recently completed a socio-legal research study on the use of section 37 Children Act 1989 at UEA.  She was formerly a legal adviser at Coram Children’s Legal...

The Habberfields and the Hab-not-a-fields

by Guest Post | Jun 29, 2019 | Analysis, Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

This is a guest post by Charlotte John. “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep.” Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Last year saw an abundant crop of “proprietary estoppel” disputes between...