Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re out to sue me…

by Lucy R | Jun 17, 2019 | Cases, Comment, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

The Transparency Project was founded in part to counter dodgy headlines and over-simplified or inaccurate media reports about all things family law. Every so often, distortion of what a case *really* says or means comes from within the system. This is one such...

How do family courts use ‘barring orders’?

by Julie Doughty | Jun 9, 2019 | Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

One of the tasks of the new review of family courts and domestic abuse announced last month by the MoJ is to examine courts’ use of barring orders. (By the way, we don’t know when the three months for the review starts, although we are now three weeks in from...

How does the family court deal with domestic abuse? A snapshot – Part 2

by Sophie Smith Holland | Jun 7, 2019 | Analysis, Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

This is Part 2. You can read Part 1 here. A (A Child) [2019] EWFC B16 (12 March 2019) In this case, the court was making a final decision in care proceedings. The decision to be made was whether a child could be cared for by both of his parents, just his mother...

How does the family court deal with domestic abuse? A snapshot

by Sophie Smith Holland | Jun 7, 2019 | Analysis, Cases, Comment, Explanation

This is a first post from Sophie Smith-Holland, one of our new contributors. Sophie tweets as @SSmithHolland. The post is divided into two parts. This is Part One. The question of how the Family Court deals with domestic abuse has had a huge amount of public...

Do social workers have a duty of care to protect children of local authority tenants?

by Julie Doughty | Jun 6, 2019 | Cases, Explanation

You can tell this was likely to be an important case because there are five ‘interverners’ – organisations that have an interest, in principle, in the outcome – in this particular case, from a human rights and children’s rights perspective. The applicants were two...

Independent research on domestic abuse and family courts

by reporting watch team | Jun 1, 2019 | Analysis, FCReportingWatch

In the Victoria Derbyshire television programme on 16 May, Sir James Munby, the former President of the Family Division, acknowledged (via a written statement) the weight of expressions of dissatisfaction and concern that was building up about orders for contact...