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 weeks earlier and this incident didn’t directly involve her or their children. He recovered, and has maintained a very good relationship with the children, who live with their mother, but he still finds it difficult to control feelings of anger and beliefs that he is being persecuted.
Observing this case in Cardiff Family Court has made me wonder how many other families fell apart during the Covid lockdown because of a proliferation of conspiracy theories and misinformation damaging people’s mental health.
Proceedings before a district judge during 2021-22 had ended with a child arrangements order that the three children live with their mother and spend time with their father for alternate weekends, one evening during each school week, and half of school holidays. Unfortunately, although these arrangements were largely being observed, conflict between the parents escalated and the father again applied to court at the end of 2024. Shortly afterwards, he didn’t return the children from a contact visit and the mother applied for a ‘delivery up’ order and a variation that all future contact be supervised. The delivery up order was made a couple of days later and the children were returned to her by their social worker. Eventually, contact was restored to that ordered in 2022, but the parents still didn’t agree on the arrangements. The mother and the children all lived with her parents between 2020 and 2026. The father made a number of allegations about the mother and her family, and she made a number against him in response. Unusually for private law proceedings, the mother’s concerns weren’t based on experiences of domestic abuse during their marriage, but mainly on the father’s behaviour since they split up.
By the time the father’s application reached a seven-day fact-finding hearing more than year later, the court bundle was enormous, consisting of 20 lever-arch files of documents, sitting by the witness box. There were also several electronic files of audio and visual evidence. The huge volume of evidence was partly due to local authority (LA) involvement over the years and lengthy social work records, as well as some police records. Although the judge and lawyers in court consult an electronic bundle on their own laptops, a paper copy has to be provided for reference by witnesses, hence all the boxes in court. We write about recent guidance on court bundles on 9th March.
In September 2025, I began to attend hearings in this case as a legal blogger before His Honour Judge Paul Hopkins KC, who is the designated family judge for South East Wales. None of the parties objected to the making of a transparency order, and the lawyers were all helpful when I asked for copies of relevant documents. (I didn’t ask for many.)
The father was a litigant in person and had the assistance of a qualified legal representative (QLR). Unusually, the QLR was requested to cross examine not only the mother and her witnesses but also an independent social worker (ISW) who’d been appointed by the court to carry out parenting assessments. The barrister who undertook the QLR role in this lengthy case made a very positive contribution, as described later in this post.
The mother was represented in court by a barrister; the children, via the Cafcass guardian, were represented by a solicitor. The maternal grandfather (following some allegations made about him by the father) was joined to the case as an ‘intervener’ and was represented by another barrister. An unusual aspect was that it had fallen to the children’s advocate to bear the responsibility of preparing case summaries and the (enormous) bundle. The father didn’t trust the mother’s or her father’s lawyers. He blamed his ex-wife and her family for ‘what happened to me’ although his psychotic breakdown hadn’t actually occurred in their presence and it was his own family and neighbours who’d called the police and ambulance. The children’s solicitor was the only lawyer being funded by legal aid, so this may have been the only pragmatic solution – it probably wasn’t possible to burden the mother’s family with the extra expense, and it couldn’t be covered by a QLR whose role and funding is limited to asking questions of specified witnesses.
The parents’ position at the fact-finding hearing
At the point of the fact-finding hearing in January 2026, the father (who I’ll call Ben) was applying for the children to live with him and have alternate weekend contact with their mother (‘Laura’). He was also applying for a non-molestation order against Laura and her family, and permission to disclose court documents to pursue a complaint (see below in ‘Information sharing’).
Laura wanted the children to continue to live with her and for the regularity of contact with Ben to be reduced. Her concerns included Ben’s anti-vaccination and ‘big Pharma’ beliefs, although this had been partly settled by a specific issue order in July 2025 that the children were to have routine vaccinations.
In total, the parents had 11 applications ongoing between them at the start of the fact-finding hearing. There were dozens of allegations and cross-allegations between the parents for the judge to decide. They mainly revolved around the issue, as Laura put it: ‘I worry he’ll never forgive my family for what he thinks we did to him’.
The fact-finding judgment extended to 735 paragraphs over 188 pages. It‘s not going to be published because the judge says it would be impossible to sufficiently anonymise.
Parents’ evidence in court
When challenged on aspects of his evidence, Ben was defiant and would usually identify someone else to blame. He was bitter toward professionals who’d been involved in his restraint and treatment in 2020, and toward other professionals who’d been involved with child protection and the court. During cross examination, Ben said to Laura’s barrister ‘I don’t know how you sleep at night’ (having her as a client). He had been reported (by the ISW) as calling the judge ‘corrupt’ and ‘a nonce’. HHJ Hopkins however described Ben, in the judgment, as ‘unfailingly courteous’ toward himself when in court. Overall, Ben’s focus was on the harm he’d suffered through his breakdown in 2020 and the district judge’s order in 2022, having (he believed) all been caused by Laura’s family.
In contrast, when Laura was challenged, she tended to be apologetic and often tearful. She clearly acknowledged that the older children ‘adored’ Ben and she denied that she wanted to undermine his role, but she said she was frightened of him. On behalf of Ben, when cross examining Laura, the QLR highlighted occasions when she’d perhaps over-reacted to something one of the children said or did, and would too easily refer incidents or suspicions to the LA or the police. However, her barrister noted in his submissions that she and the other adults in both families had been placed under a duty by Ben’s psychiatrist to be vigilant about any sign of his having a relapse. Matters were further complicated by Ben having made Laura’s position in her workplace extremely difficult.
Despite all the conflict between the parents, the totality of their evidence (together with the social worker’s) indicated that Ben was a great dad in many ways and that the children enjoyed their time with him.
Laura and her father (‘Patrick’) sat together in the court room, screened from Ben. Patrick was in court to defend himself against some bizarre allegations Ben had made about sexual offences which had brought in the police and children’s services. (No criminal charges were ever brought against Patrick and HHJ Hopkins concluded that none of these allegations were true.) Patrick had been given permission by the court to become a party to the proceedings as ‘an intervener’ to defend himself. In Patrick’s evidence, he talked about the former close relationship between Ben and the maternal family, enjoying holidays together etc. Patrick said that for him, losing that relationship had ‘felt like a bereavement’.
The ISW’s evidence
Unfortunately, Ben didn’t get on at all with the (very experienced) ISW who had been appointed by the court to carry out parenting assessments. She reported him as being manic, pacing, swearing and shouting during their meetings. She left one session early because of his behaviour. Despite this, she had made some positive observations in her report about his parenting qualities but overall her parenting assessment of Ben and his partner was negative. She recommended Laura care for the children and that contact with Ben be reduced, especially contact with the youngest child. This child has some particular health needs that Ben found hard to accept, and she’d exhibited some concerning behaviour that was being addressed by therapy.
The local authority social worker’s evidence
The children were on the Child Protection Register and there had been regular meetings between the parents and the children’s social worker, who was present through most of the hearing. I’ll call her ‘Claire’. Claire had been the children’s allocated social worker for more than a year. She was one of the few witnesses questioned by Ben himself, not the QLR. There were quite a few points of disagreement between them, mainly about the children’s experiences of the episode when Ben hadn’t returned them from contact. It was clarified that the LA were not considering taking public law proceedings, but that some kind of support plan would be needed.
The judge questioned Claire closely on how the LA would respond to his findings about Ben’s allegations about the maternal family, whether he found these to be true or not and, if not, why Ben had made them.
The children’s guardian’s view
As noted above, the solicitor for the children was ‘the custodian of the bundle’ (as the judge described her) and therefore had to take the procedural lead quite often. However, the guardian doesn’t have a role in giving evidence about whether allegations are true or not. The children’s solicitor’s questions of the witnesses at the fact finding were relatively few and for clarification. The guardian was present throughout most of the hearing. The children’s solicitor indicated to the court at an early stage that the guardian was considering a different approach to the ISW, as her assessment of Ben was more positive than that of the social workers, presumably based on the strength of the children’s attachment to him. Like the LA social worker, the guardian’s final views would however be dependent on the court’s findings.
Although there were some differences of opinion between the social work professionals at the outset of the fact finding, they were all in agreement that it was essential the children be provided with a clear narrative, prepared by a professional, that was agreed by all the adults about what had happened and the reasons for the court decisions that were to be made about their future.
Role of the QLR
Initially, the QLR had been appointed by the court to cross examine Laura, which is the standard role. His input was extended to cross examination of Patrick and all Laura’s witnesses. He also cross examined the ISW, I assume because the judge didn’t think Ben could manage that fairly. I’ve sat through quite a few hearings with QLRs since the scheme began – this barrister was by far the most proactive I have seen. I’m sure his presence greatly helped to keep everything calmer than it would otherwise have been. I can’t imagine how these hearings would have been possible if there was no QLR scheme, because Ben would probably have seen himself as virtually isolated in the courtroom. Although the QLR was just putting questions to witnesses on behalf of Ben, not giving Ben legal advice, I could see he was often explaining things about court procedure to him, for which Ben appeared grateful. Strictly speaking, this is not part of the QLR’s role but I’m sure it assisted the court. Unlike some recently reported cases, I’m confident the questions were genuinely those of an experienced advocate based on Ben’s statements and the answers given by the witnesses..
Information sharing outside the court proceedings
Two issues about parties wrongfully sharing information from court had arisen amongst the many allegations – matters of special interest to The Transparency Project. These sounded like potential breaches of section 12, Administration of Justice Act 1960 to me, and there’d been warnings by the judge. One of the issues was: Ben alleged that Laura had sent a copy of written submissions from the previous proceedings to the children’s school without permission from the court. Second, Laura alleged that Ben had shared information with a regulatory body by lodging a complaint about her sister, who is a health professional.
What had happened in the first matter was that Laura had responded a few months earlier to a report by the LA by sending to the children’s school some documents she thought were relevant, including one that had set out her barrister’s arguments in the 2021-2022 proceedings. Although copies of court orders can normally be shared by parents with professionals, most other court documents can’t, without the court varying section 12 restrictions. Laura apologised when asked about this by the QLR and, in his judgment, HHJ Hopkins said that if she had applied to court to disclose it, that application would probably have been granted.
Regarding the second matter, Ben alleged that Laura’s sister had used her professional status to wrongly influence his clinical treatment and to make unnecessary referrals about his behaviour. He had made a complaint to her regulator, the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). Sharing information from family courts with a regulatory body like the HCPC isn’t allowed without the court’s permission (unless it relates to someone directly participating in the proceedings which Laura’s sister wasn’t). The HCPC had rejected the complaint. I’m not sure exactly what Ben had sent to them, but he was now asking for permission to send some documents from the 2021-2022 proceedings as well as the findings that HHJ Hopkins was going to make in these current proceedings. (However, the fact-finding judgment didn’t uphold Ben’s allegations that the aunt had behaved inappropriately, and Ben eventually dropped this part of his application.)
Another issue of interest to us regarding transparency was a dispute over the district judge’s 2022 judgment because this hadn’t been written down as an authorised judgment. Notes from that earlier hearing were summarised for the purpose of the new set of proceedings and agreed as accurate by the lawyers representing Laura and the children respectively. However, Ben didn’t accept this summary and a transcript of the earlier hearing had to be sought instead. Perhaps it would have been helpful if there had been an authorised judgment by the district judge for Ben to read when he was preparing his new application. The transcript was quoted at length in HHJ Hopkins’ judgment. He emphasised that he was not ‘going behind’ the district judge’s findings (i.e. there was no question of not accepting all the findings that had been made in that 2022 judgment).
The fact-finding judgment
When HHJ Hopkins handed down his 181 page judgment, he commented that he was not intending to publish it on The National Archives because there was too much detail in it for him to fully anonymise. For similar reasons, I’m not going to attempt to fully cover his findings but will try to highlight what may be helpful in the public interest to point toward the final welfare decision.
Although Laura and Patrick were not in receipt of legal aid funding and were themselves paying their respective barristers, this case will have run up enormous expense for the court service, the Ministry of Justice who pay the judge’s salary, the local authority, Cafcass Cymru, and the Legal Aid Agency for the children’s legal aid costs. There will also be future public expense for the agreed social work support and specialist therapy.
Generally, the fact-finding judgment says:
- Over the years, Laura had done more to facilitate contact between the children and Ben than she had tried to undermine it. Ben describes a period following his breakdown, when he had supervised contact only, as a time when he wasn’t allowed to see the children, but the judge said this was wrong. Contact had been maintained as much as was practical and possible.
- Ben’s feelings of resentment that Laura and her family were responsible for his breakdown continued and were even stronger now than during the first set of court proceedings. Some of Ben’s beliefs about the maternal family were ‘irrational’, ‘distorted’, and even ‘grotesque’.
- Laura’s fears of the prospect of Ben’s health again deteriorating were ‘fundamentally sound’, based on a destabilising and very frightening period of her life.
- The specific allegation made by Ben against Patrick that had led to police and children’s services interventions was found to be malicious and without foundation. Ben had also persuaded a friend of his to lie to the court about this. (This was the allegation that caused Patrick to become a party to the proceedings, in order to defend himself. He had his own barrister present for most of the hearings and after this finding he indicated he would apply for a costs order against Ben, but he didn’t pursue this.)
- Two allegations made by Ben against Laura and her mother were found to be proved by the judge; they both accepted in their evidence that they regretted these incidents. These were at the less serious end of the scale – e.g one morning when Laura was going to court, her mother was tense and shouted at the children, which upset everyone so much that she decided to keep them home from school that day. The more serious allegations made by Ben were not found proved.
- Most of Laura’s allegations about Ben causing emotional harm to the children through trying to influence them against her, the incident when he refused to return them home, the untrue allegations about their grandfather (who lived with them) etc. were found to be proved.
A draft copy of the judgment was sent out shortly before it was formalised and handed down, giving the parties and the lawyers some time to consider the best way forward. At the hand down hearing in April, the judge made an order under section 37 Children Act 1989, which required that the LA investigate whether they should apply for care or supervision orders and report back to the court. A timetable was agreed for the guardian to make her final report and recommendations. It was agreed that during the investigation, there would be a short break in contact between the three children and Ben, followed by weekly supervised contact. The judge would write a letter to the children to explain that this plan was being put in place because of concerns that the professionals had about some of the things their parents (but primarily Ben) had been saying to them and that he was yet to make a final decision. The letter would be given to them by the Cafcass guardian. The judge was anxious that the children be informed without more delay about decisions that were being made about them, especially with the significant change in contact arrangements. It was also agreed that it was essential the children eventually be given a full child-friendly narrative of the findings that were going to inform the welfare decision.
The judge said he hoped that Ben and Laura would be able to agree longer term arrangements and that a care order wouldn’t be necessary. Laura’s barrister said that she fully accepted all the judge’s findings. I’m not sure what Ben had written in his statement, but the judge said that his response to the findings and his agreement to the interim contact arrangements were ‘measured’, and this gave him optimism.
The second part of my report on this case, about the welfare hearing and final outcome for the children, will be posted separately.
Image: sketch of box of folders by Peter Townend
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