This judgment was given in private. The judge gives permission for this version of the judgment to be published on condition that (irrespective of what is contained in the judgment) in any published version of this judgment the anonymity of the children and members of their family must be strictly preserved. All persons, including representatives of the media and legal bloggers, must ensure that this condition is strictly complied with. Failure to do so may be a contempt of court.
[2025] EWFC 75 (B)
IN THE FAMILY COURT AT COVENTRY
Much Park Street, Coventry, CV1 2SN
Date: 28 March 2025
Before :
Recorder Wells
Between :
|
[F] |
Applicant |
|
- and –
|
|
|
[M] |
First Respondent |
|
- and –
|
|
|
[A and B] |
Second and Third Respondents |
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Kajal Dasani (instructed by MSB Solicitors) for the Applicant
Brett Wilson (instructed by Straw and Pearce Solicitors) for the First Respondent
Jennifer Steele (instructed by Rotherham Solicitors) for the Second and Third Respondents
Hearing dates: 13, 14 and 28 March 2025
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Judgment Approved
This judgment was handed down at 12 noon on 28 March 2025 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives
Recorder Wells:
1. These private law proceedings are in week 96. My first involvement with them was when I heard the fact-finding hearing on 13 and 14 March 2025. This is my judgment from that hearing.
Introduction
2. The applicant is the children's father. The respondent is the children's mother. They both share parental responsibility for the children (who are parties to the proceedings): A (12) and B (9). The Guardian is CG. The Father has a new partner who is relevant and will be referred to as FP.
3. The parties had a lengthy marriage and separated in 2021. After separation matters were agreed amicably including both boys having significant staying contact with their father.
4. B stopped having contact with his father in January 2023. A stopped in June 2023.
These proceedings
5. These proceedings were issued by The Father on 22 May 2023 when he applied for a Child Arrangements Order.
6. The children were joined as parties on 17 January 2024 and CG (previously the Family Court Adviser) was appointed as their Guardian.
7. At a hearing on 19 July 2024 the parties produced an "Agreed Narrative". The details contained within this would be quite important to the factual and welfare issues in the case except that The Mother tells me she never agreed the document. She states that she was represented by a barrister. The Mother told me she was at one of the children's schools at the time. I determined at the beginning of this hearing that it was not proportionate to investigate and determine the circumstances leading to this Narrative being produced. I have therefore not treated matters in that Agreed Narrative as concessions given by The Mother.
8. There has been significant debate and judicial oversight about whether there should be a fact-finding hearing in these proceedings (and if so, about what).
This Hearing
9. Both parents attended. The Guardian was not able to attend. All parties were represented by counsel. I am very grateful to all advocates for dealing with difficult subject matter with sensitivity and skill.
10. The previous case management order was, in my view, clear as to the parameters of this fact-find: to deal firstly with the truth of the boys' allegations against their father, and secondly any allegations by The Father arising from the children having made those allegations (essentially whether The Mother had put them up to it).
11. The litigation history required that the parameters of the factual enquiry were managed with clarity. There are, for example, allegations made by The Mother against The Father of historic domestic abuse and sexual assault, but The Mother is not seeking to prove those allegations. There are also, and have been throughout the case, allegations by The Father of wide-ranging alienating behaviour by The Mother which had not previously resulted in a fact-finding hearing.
12. Allegations 1-4 are allegations made by the boys against their father. This was plainly contemplated by the previous Case Management Order and I indicated at the beginning of the hearing that these issues would be litigated.
13. Turning to The Father' allegations against The Mother, I could readily see that paragraph 1 (7) (false allegations to the police) and 2 (mother facilitating and influencing the children) were contemplated by the previous Case Management Order. But the balance of his allegations caused me significant difficulty at the start of the hearing: firstly because they go beyond the parameters of the previous Case Management Order. They can in no way be said to arise from the boys' allegations. And secondly because a substantial number of the matters pleaded appeared to have been conceded (in some form) in The Mother' earlier statement (to which I will return) and the Agreed Narrative appended to the 19 July 2024 order (which I had not fully appreciated, at this point, was in dispute).
14. I gave a case management judgment determining that I would limit the fact-finding hearing to the boys' allegations against their father, and those allegations by The Father which I have referred to with approval in the previous paragraph.
15. In the course of submissions prior to this case management decision I had been told that The Mother may be seeking to resile from her summer 2024 statement in which she made some significant concessions, and that she will allege that the 19 July 2024 Agreed Narrative was not in fact agreed by her. I had taken these matters into account but perhaps not realised quite the extent to which The Mother would seek to go behind these documents.
16. When The Mother began her oral evidence, she told me about the 19 July 2024 hearing. She said she never spoke to the barrister representing her on that date. She was taken through some of the key concessions apparently made by her and set out in the Narrative and made clear that she absolutely disagrees with them. She also told me that she never approved the circa 10-page summer 2024 statement and that this was filed by her solicitor without her instructions or approval. During the course of submissions and also when The Mother had begun her evidence, I deliberately used language to make clear to everybody, including The Mother, quite what it was she must be alleging: i.e. that her solicitor has been guilty of very significant misconduct, filing a statement which is largely made up, and a combination of her solicitor and barrister must also have behaved appallingly to have agreed a narrative including significant concessions on her behalf without ever speaking to her.
17. I paused the evidence and heard further submissions. The advocates suggested that disclosure from legal professionals might be indicated to get to the truth of whether her statement was based on her instructions and approved by her, and whether she also in fact approved the Narrative. I concluded that this was a perilous and complex route to progress and determined that I would simply reverse my earlier case management decision. I decided I would litigate the entirety of the allegations in the schedule.
18. For the purposes of this hearing, I have read every word of the trial bundle comprising 588 pages. I have also been sent an email with voice recordings featuring The Mother and the children, and some miscellaneous correspondence. I have also watched the video interviews of the children.
19. The evidence concluded at 4 PM on the second day so I directed written submissions.
20. I should make clear at this stage that although I have read the entire bundle and listened to all arguments advanced, it is not possible to set out absolutely everything in a judgment. I have focused on the issues which in my judgement are of significance. The fact that I do not deal with a particular part of the evidence, or a specific argument made by a party, does not mean I have not considered it.
Legal principles
21. The essential legal principles in respect of findings of fact are well known. The burden of proof rests with the person seeking to prove something. In this case it is The Mother who has the burden of proving the allegations made against The Father by the boys, and The Father who has the burden of proof in respect of alienating behaviours.
22. On the specific facts of this case it is important that I remind myself that a finding (or non-finding) on one or other of these scenarios does not automatically prove the other. It is misconceived as a matter of law to say, for example, that because the boys' allegations against The Father are untrue, The Mother must have coached them. It would be equally wrong to decide that The Mother has committed alienating behaviours, and therefore the boys' allegations cannot be true. Both sides of the case need to be independently interrogated by reference to the requisite standard of proof (which is the simple balance of probabilities).
23. Findings must be based on evidence. This can include inferences which can properly be drawn, but must not descend into speculation. I should also take care not to compartmentalise the evidence. Rather, all evidence should be seen in the context of other evidence in the case and seen as a whole.
24. I should also consider the role of experts, and that they stay within proper bounds. The expert and the Court have different roles. It is the Court alone who sets the factual matrix.
25. There is a significant body of law dealing with lies. People lie for all sorts of reasons, and I need to look carefully at why somebody is lying about a particular matter. I should also be careful not to conclude that just because somebody is lying about one thing, they are necessarily lying about everything.
26. Particular vigilance is needed in the context of private law proceedings. Allegations are not being brought by a professional body (e.g. a Local Authority) but rather by individual litigants who may be invested in a particular outcome which may provide a motivation for embellishment or fabrication.
27. There is no requirement for me to slavishly adhere to the Schedules provided for this hearing. I could take the view that it is unnecessary to litigate every issue in the Schedule. Equally I am not barred from making further or other findings which had not been particularised in a schedule. In this regard though, there must be a good reason and a solid evidential basis for doing so, and procedural fairness must be maintained. Any such additional findings ought to be within the known parameters of the case.
28. Over recent years there has been a significant number of cases dealing with the assessment of witnesses giving oral evidence. I remind myself that giving evidence in the emotionally charged atmosphere of a contested family dispute is not natural for people. Different people will present in different ways as a consequence. There can of course be value in observations of the way that participants give their oral evidence, and even their presentation and responses generally within the well of the court, but the notion that the credibility of witnesses can be exclusively or even substantially informed by their demeanour in oral evidence has essentially been debunked.
29. The proper approach can be identified in, for example, Re P (Sexual Abuse - Finding of Fact Hearing) [2019] EWFC 27 from paragraph 251 onwards. Paragraph 254 encapsulates the approach to be taken.
30. I should also deal with specific legal principles and guidance in respect of cases involving allegations of alienating behaviours. I start with the December 2024 guidance from the Family Justice Council. Page 4 includes a glossary which I have read with care. It stresses the importance of maintaining a focus on the impact on the children rather than on parental behaviours per se. It reminds me that the notion of a diagnosable syndrome has been discredited. At page eight the guidance sets out three necessary elements for alienating behaviours to be found. I have considered the guidance in respect of Appropriate Justified Rejection (page 9) and Protective Behaviours (page 10). The person with the burden of proof must establish (page 14) that the harmful behaviour has occurred, and that this behaviour has led to a child's unjustified reluctance, resistance or refusal to spend time with the other parent. Ms Steele's closing submissions set out additional relevant paragraphs from the Guidance.
31. Mr Wilson has provided a first instance decision by Recorder O'Grady to remind me that I) it is the nature of behaviour and the impact on children that is important, not the motivation or label, II) manipulation need not be malicious or deliberate and III) the identification of "alienating behaviours" should be the Court's focus rather than any quest to determine whether the label "parental alienation" can be applied.
32. The Guardian's earlier position statement provided references to further case law with which I am familiar.
The oral evidence
The Mother
33. Given The Mother's position (that the content of at least one of her witness statements had been invented by her lawyer) I took particular care to clarify the authorship and adoption of her written documents. Her first statement was written by her when she was representing herself and she agrees it is all true. The next statement was short so I asked her to read it in its entirety. It had not been signed. She seemed inexplicably cagey but did then say that there was nothing in this statement she disagreed with. The next statement was not signed or dated either. This is the statement that The Mother told me she did not agree with. Her final statement (prepared by her current solicitor) is signed and dated, and she confirmed it is true. She also told me that her responses to the latest schedule of allegations was properly prepared on her instructions and is agreed by her.
34. The Mother was asked about the 7 September 2023 order where it is recorded that she did not agree direct contact. She told me this was not her view, it was the children's view. She went on to say that "up until the allegations being made by the children I had no issue with contact happening". That struck me, when set against the chronology of concerns I will go on to describe, as difficult to believe.
35. The Mother told me that the message which, according to her, was typed by the boys to their father on 10 January 2023 occurred following her handing her phone to them. She agreed they could have seen the totality of the message thread and, when asked if this was appropriate, she accepted that it wasn't. That was the only answer she could really give in my view, but she didn't show any remorse.
36. The Mother accepted that the school specifically reported to CAFCASS that there were no concerns with the children as at November 2023. However, she disagrees. She said she has taken this up with the school because there were problems (which the school have singularly failed to report).
37. I turn now to the issue of B's letter to his father. She agrees that the letter was written by B (and is in his handwriting). She denies having anything to do with its production. She told me she was driving the children to school on Friday 24 November 2023. She said that B spontaneously said that he needed to post something through The Father's door and that "I allowed him to do that". The first difficulty with this evidence was that The Mother maintained that the letter was posted on 24 November on the way to school, despite the letter in fact being dated 25 November. It would in my view be unusual for a child to post-date a letter. The Mother could provide no explanation for this discrepancy. This may seem like a trifling difficulty but it does have some significance because if the letter was in fact written on 25 November, it cannot have been posted on the 24th, and therefore would have required a special trip to The Father's house (which The Mother would be lying about).
38. The Mother agreed that the outside of the envelope is addressed "from [B] for not contact" [sic]. She told me that the first she knew about the letter was when this was subsequently reported in the CAFCASS letter (28 November 2023). The Mother agreed that the 17 November 2023 CAFCASS report recommended that direct contact commence, and that the letter from B to his father followed very quickly after this. The Mother told me that she never asked B what it was he was posting through his father's letterbox. This struck me as extremely bizarre behaviour. B had not seen his father between January 2023 and November 2023. A CAFCASS report had been received by The Mother in the days leading up to the writing of the letter. The Mother has demonstrated a very keen interest in the children's views about contact (for example deliberately audio recording their wishes and feelings for six consecutive weeks in August and September). B was eight at the time. I found it extremely difficult to believe that B would simply say 'I am just popping something through my dad's letterbox' and that this particular mother, in the context I have described, would not have asked 'what does it say?'.
39. I asked The Mother some questions about the letter. She told me B has never written a letter to his father before. She told me categorically that she did not ask B what was in the letter. I suggested to her that this seems odd: how can she support her eight-year-old child - who has had no contact with his father for 10 months and who, on her case, was very resistant to him - if she cannot explore what on earth it is that he has decided to write in a letter to his dad? She then almost immediately told me that she did in fact ask B what was in the letter, but that he did not want her to know. In that sense she gave two completely contradictory answers to a simple question within about 30 seconds. I understand that giving evidence in court is stressful and the court needs to tolerate imperfect evidence. The difficulty here is that her clear case was that she did not ask B what was in the letter until I suggested that struck me as unusual, whereupon she immediately told me that she, in fact, did ask him. That struck me as seeking to give the right impression by making her evidence up as she went along.
40. The Mother denied any connection between the letter and the recommendations in the CAFCASS report made just days earlier.
41. The Mother' case is that B, an eight-year-old child, by complete coincidence, wrote a letter (for the first time ever) to his father about "not contact", post-dated it, requested to approach The Father' house and personally posted it through the letterbox, and that The Mother never saw the content. I found this evidence wholly unconvincing.
42. One of The Father's complaints is that A had a planned operation in hospital under general anaesthetic and that The Mother excluded him from attending. She explained that the hospital only allowed one parent to be there. She said she had a letter to this effect but conceded she had not produced it for the Court. She sounded superficially convincing at this point, but her account needs to be taken in the context of me subsequently having sight of the letter. The letter is clear that only one parent can be at the "bedside". It does not in any way support the proposition that The Father could not have been at the hospital to support his son before or after the operation.
43. Given The Mother's comments about producing evidence which had not been submitted by her lawyers, it was put to her that she has never complained about that. She told me that she in fact has, and that this is why she changed solicitors during the proceedings. However, upon further questioning she accepted that it was in fact her solicitor who initiated the separation because of a conflict of interests. The Mother's choices regarding representation are a matter for her, but I raise this point because it is a further example of The Mother contradicting herself.
44. The Mother was asked about the audio recordings and said "I just wanted the boys to be heard. No one believes me". That struck me as making no sense: her regular audio recordings started almost immediately after the first hearing in these proceedings and before CAFCASS had even have a chance to speak to the children. I don't understand, factually, the basis of her assertion that she felt no one was listening to her. She hadn't given anyone a chance.
45. It was put to The Mother that the children have heard things which they shouldn't have in her home. Her immediate and combative response was instructive: "they've also heard things in his household". There was no willingness to consider her own conduct.
46. The Mother was asked about the children's knowledge of the court proceedings. She provided more detail of the occasion when she received a letter about the court hearing and, she says, put it on the top of the Welsh dresser. She told me she did not share what the letter was about and did not tell the children she was putting it on top of the Welsh dresser. She said that B (an eight-year-old) subsequently took it upon himself to get a chair and go searching on top of the Welsh dresser, found the correspondence, and read it. That did not strike me as typical behaviour for an eight-year-old child. I have no difficulty believing a child of that age might sneakily climb up searching for sweets or a confiscated toy, but I have more difficulty believing they would speculatively grope around the top shelf of the dresser in search of court correspondence (unless they knew it was up there and knew that it was something which had upset their mum).
47. The Mother was asked whether, if the allegations of physical abuse were proved, the children should never see their father again? She said "that's down to the children". That, again, is an intriguing and problematic answer. She doesn't appear, either in the witness box or previously, to have given any serious thought to the risks to the children's safety if the allegations are true, or the advantages of contact which would also need to be weighed in the balance. Her answer revealed that she holds tight to the main thrust of her case: it's all about what the children say they want.
48. The Mother was asked why she has not provided updates to The Father about the children generally. She agreed she had not done this "because I'm not his PA anymore". This answer discloses an inability to recognise that basic updates to a parent not seeing the children are an essential and important part of her parenting responsibility. The content of the answer, and the way it was given, laid bare her palpable bitterness towards The Father.
49. The Mother completely denied ever speaking negatively to the children about their father. This struck me as incredibly difficult to believe. It is very difficult for any separated parents to avoid some kind of negativity about the other parent. But in this particular case there are so many factors suggesting hostility towards The Father in the home was present such as: I) The Mother's unveiled hatred of The Father in her oral evidence (as to which see below); II) her repeated allegations of how he has behaved (domestic abuse, inappropriate conduct with his new girlfriend in front of one of the children, harassment and stalking at a sports match (I could go on); III) her willingness to engage the children inappropriately on the issue of their father (for example by recording their wishes on her phone every week). Yet she would have me believe that despite these (and other) factors, she has never been negative about The Father in front of the children.
50. Linked to what I have just said, The Mother was asked about B saying that The Mother thinks The Father is "a horrible liar and uncaring" (458). I asked The Mother whether that is in fact her view. The answer was pretty clear: "yes!". So she concedes that B's understanding of his mother's attitude towards his father is accurate. But she told me this has nothing to do with her but is, rather, based on B's own experiences of his father. This makes no sense. B is not saying that he thinks his father is horrible and uncaring, he is saying that this is what his mother thinks.
51. The Mother's evidence was, in the main, lacking emotion (other than her bitterness and enmity towards The Father, which frequently reared its head). However, she did at one point (when she was being accused of lying) become extremely distressed. She was very tearful, she turned 180 degrees so that her face could not be seen by me or anyone else whilst she cried. She did recover and told me that she was upset at being called a liar, and that she would never do anything to hurt the children. I have reflected both contemporaneously and subsequently on why it was that The Mother became suddenly so distressed. The response could be consistent with facing an injustice, but it could also be entirely consistent with guilt and shame, as the examples of her misconduct and were presented to her.
52. I asked The Mother what her feelings were about The Father having a new partner: not just him being in a new relationship, but also the children having a step-mum. She told me "I couldn't care less". I found that a deeply problematic answer. Almost all parents I have encountered professionally and personally have at least some degree of interest when the other parent of their children has a new partner who will be spending significant amounts of time with their children. On the specific facts of this case, it is even more likely: even if I ignore for the moment the truth of these matters, it is The Mother's case that B has been troubled by exposure to a sexual encounter between The Father and his new partner, and it is also her case that the children's relationship with their father went downhill when he prioritised his new partner. None of this supports the proposition that this is a lady who "couldn't care less". Her answer - blunt, categorical and dismissive - seemed more indicative of her having a real problem with the new partner, with which she was not willing to engage.
53. When asked about unilaterally changing the children's schools (which I remind myself is something she has admitted) she told me that "I wasn't aware what I was doing was wrong". I did not believe her. She has likened a school change in her witness statement to booking a GP appointment. However, when I asked her how a school change might rank for a child, in terms of its significance as a childhood event, she told me it would be quite high. Furthermore, the position is completely untenable given that she proceeded with the school move even after being told by her lawyers that The Father objected to it. In other words even if - which I reject - she had thought that changing the children's school was insignificant and akin to a GP appointment, that ceased to have any relevance once she knew that The Father was seeking to oppose it. Maintaining the stance that she thought she did not need to tell The Father about this significant step was disingenuous and insulting.
54. In addition, her account is contradictory because her alternative explanation is that in the context of ongoing proceedings she was under a lot of anxiety and stress and it did not cross her mind. I really struggled with this contention. There was in fact a court hearing in November 2023 when she had already made the application to the education authority. The existence of court proceedings and an actual court hearing in my judgement should make it more likely that she would be prompted to share the information - if she wanted to - rather than less likely.
55. Overall then I found this witness to be deeply problematic. She rarely if ever gave the impression she had any empathy for the children. She minimised or dismissed suggestions of wrongdoing. Her evidence was frequently contradictory, not only with other parts of her oral evidence, but also when seen in the context the totality of the evidence available.
56. Now is a convenient point to record that The Mother read through the previously-disputed statement during her oral evidence. She confirmed that the only paragraph she in fact disagreed with was paragraph 11. The balance was adopted as her evidence in the case. In those circumstances I have disregarded paragraph 11, but elsewhere in this judgment where I make reference to the statement I do so on the basis she has adopted it as her evidence.
The Father
57. The Father presented as consistently insightful. I will give some examples:
a. Other than some minor aspects, he told me he accepts the report of Dr G.
b. Various matters were put to him which he could have quibbled with if he wanted to, but he showed a willingness to be open minded. For example, it was suggested that, according to Dr G, there may be aspects of The Father linked to him concealing things. He said that if this is the view of the expert, he is happy to accept it.
c. The Father told me that he has reflected on the fact that he does perhaps see things in a "black and white way". He told me he would really like to do therapy but is struggling to afford it at the moment. Later in his evidence he told me that he feels The Mother is only doing therapy because it is Court-ordered. He told me with real strength of feeling that the purpose of therapy is "to heal", not just to attend because you have been told to.
58. The Father appeared to engage far more realistically with the totality of the evidence than The Mother. He accepted certain matters put to him about the boys' allegations. For example where it was suggested that there were consistencies in the allegations, he told me that yes, there do appear to be consistencies. He presented with an assuredness that the truth is capable of being established without needing to quarrel about any/all evidence pointing away from his account.
59. His evidence when being asked questions specifically about The Mother was in my judgement nuanced, balanced and sensitive:
a. When asked about The Mother's potential motivations, he linked this to receipt by her of the psychological report. In doing so he summarised the respective outcomes for both parents. He did so with delicacy and restraint. He did not paint himself as perfect, but - significantly - neither did he seek to dramatise or be unkind in respect of what are plainly unfavourable conclusions for the mother.
b. It was put to him that The Mother appears to be supporting the children with their therapy. He told me that there is some evidence of this and this is "pleasing".
c. He was asked whether he can see the good in The Mother. He told me "I wish I could see the good in her". I thought this was quite a remarkable answer and to The Father' credit. He did not seek to denigrate her (unlike The Mother in her evidence). But equally it seems he finds it difficult at present to look favourably on her. I thought it impressive and supportive of his credibility generally that he at least had the instinct to just tell me the truth.
60. His evidence continued in an utterly believable and realistic way when he was asked what it actually is that he is alleging against The Mother that has given rise to, he says, false allegations. Is he saying that she has sat down and coached them? Rehearsed answers with them? He has plainly had a long time to think about this, and fear the worst, but his answers were reflective and sensible: he told me that unless he was a fly on the wall in the house, he will never know exactly what went on.
61. At times The Father was notably choked-up in respect of the cessation of contact with the paternal family, but this struck me as feeling the loss for the boys as much as for him and his family. He talked, for example, about the close relationship the boys had with the paternal grandparents and how important these relationships can be in children's formative years.
62. The Father was clearly really upset about some of the ways he has been excluded from the children's lives. For example, the hospital admission under general anaesthetic. It was plain that he desperately wanted to be there to support his son.
63. The Father struck me as a loving and devoted father with substantial and seemingly genuine insight as to the boys' respective personalities and needs. When talking about the children, his face lit up. He talked in detail about their different temperaments and personalities. He talked about the sort of extracurricular activities which might be good for the children's respective needs.
64. As to what is fundamentally going on in this case, causing the cessation of contact with his children, The Father was crystal clear. He told me firstly that the children have the same view of him as The Mother, and secondly that The Mother knows that the only way she can hurt him is through the boys and that is - in his view - precisely what she is doing.
65. Plainly The Mother is looking after the children and wishes to continue doing so. I wasn't clear from the bundle whether The Father was in a position to have the children full-time if that was the Court's decision, so I asked him. He told me that he could, that he now works more conventional hours and that he has a good support network. But what really struck me about his evidence was that he said "in an ideal world" he would like to co-parent. He said that the best thing would be for both parents to be involved in the lives of the children. That is a remark of some magnitude in my judgement because, if his case generally is correct, he would have justifiable reason for concluding that The Mother's role in the boys' lives should be significantly curtailed. It was plain from his evidence that he has no malicious intention to do anything of the kind.
66. For all of the reasons I have set out, I overwhelmingly preferred The Father's evidence to The Mother's.
Analysis of factual matters in chronological order
Early January 2023
67. On 3 January 2023 the parents were in conflict by text message. I have seen the messages. Plainly I do not know what messages had been sent previously or subsequently. They show a relatively polite (if a little sarcastic) message from The Father followed by a more hostile message from The Mother who is accusing The Father of being demanding and belittling. She had taken the view that The Father hates her.
68. The next message in the thread is on 10 January 2023 and is written to The Father ostensibly by the children. I am extremely concerned by this message. The Mother alleges that this message was initiated and typed by the children. I will assume for the time being that this is true. This would mean that The Mother is content to hand over her phone to the children allowing them full access to the hostilities set out in the message thread. Thus, even if I believed that the children wrote this message, they would have seen from the five lines of text immediately above the keyboard that their mother thinks their father behaves in a "disgusting" way, and that their mother believes that their father hates her. The significance of the children being deliberately exposed to message threads of this nature appeared entirely lost on The Mother when she gave her oral evidence.
69. Turning to the actual content of the message, it says this: "dad, we don't want you to pick us up Thursday morning because you are not spending time with us or taking us swimming on Monday as you are picking up [FP] from the airport. From [A] and [B]". I find this content really difficult to understand, if it came spontaneously from the children. They are saying they do not want to see their father on Thursday because he doesn't have time for them on Monday. It doesn't make any sense. Firstly, if the children are not happy about father not making time for them, I would have thought they would jump at the chance to have the Thursday with him. Secondly it strikes me as a punitive approach which is not typical for children of this age. Are they really so hurt by The Father picking up FP that they can't go to the Thursday contact? I don't understand why they would be so hurt by that. Even if, which I doubt, the sentiments expressed in that message were genuinely held by a child, I then reflect on the fact that this is apparently a joint message written by both children, suggesting they both have exactly the same view. I do not believe both children would have simultaneously had this inherently unlikely perspective towards their father.
70. In fact, on reflection, I do not think the children typed that message at all. I think The Mother did. Firstly, for the reasons I have set out, the content does not make sense from the children's perspective. It makes much more sense when read as an adult narrative dishonestly dispatched on behalf of the children. Secondly it would be far more normal for a parent to type messages to the other parent rather than giving the phone to a child. Thirdly, there is no other contemporaneous evidence to support the proposition that the children were angry with their father at this time, whereas in respect of The Mother we only need to look at the message thread for her animus to be established.
71. I do not know whether, when that text message was sent at 8:43 PM on 10 January 2023, the children were somewhere else (and a narrative was simply created on their behalf), or whether the children were present. Either scenario is serious and problematic. This is early evidence of The Mother's hostility overriding the children's autonomy. It is also in my judgement early evidence of deliberate fabrication by The Mother.
72. The Father's case is that the only logical way of understanding why The Mother promoted regular unsupervised staying contact with him until January 2023, but has since then done everything in her power to prevent a relationship, is that she was angry about him being in a new relationship. Conclusions on this theory can only be made following consideration of the totality of the evidence. But I note here that the immediate context to The Mother sending a message on behalf of the boys stating they did not want contact with him immediately followed The Father not being able to support the children's swimming lessons because he was prioritising collecting FP from the airport.
73. It is clear that the link between The Father getting a girlfriend and the cessation of contact is not in dispute. The Mother conceded this connection when speaking to CAFCASS as long ago as November 2023. The issue for my determination is not the fact of the connection, but the origin. Who was it that first had a problem with The Father's new relationship: the children, or The Mother?
74. The Mother told CAFCASS how she perceived the problem with FP at the time. She said that B had walked in on his father "engaging in sexual activity with his partner", but beyond this the concern seemed to be that, according to The Mother, the children "do not want their father's girlfriend there all the time". She also told CAFCASS that "she does not believe his interest in spending time with A and B is genuine". Having read the entire bundle I do not understand what she means by that or why she would say it.
75. Some support for the proposition that The Mother found The Father being in a new relationship to be challenging can be found in Dr G's assessment. Dr G said that she was "concerned regarding the rawness of [The Mother's] ongoing emotional upset resulting from the separation with her ex-husband".
Attending the children's events
76. In April 2023 The Mother raised concern with the school that The Father had attended the children's sporting events without warning. I remind myself of the context at this particular time: A was still going for fortnightly contact with his father.
77. What The Mother told the school was that The Father coming to their sporting events made the children "anxious and scared". According to hearsay evidence provided by a coach, The Father attended a match on 15 July 2023 and A was so upset he would not get out of the car. It seems that the coach then got into the car with both boys and their mother. He describes both children as being very upset such that they were shaking.
78. I simply do not understand why the boys would have both felt that way about their father turning up to watch a match. B had not seen his father for a few months, so potentially it might have come out of the blue and been slightly unsettling. A had, until the previous month, been going for regular staying contact with his father (and this was weekends, so I infer would have included The Father being involved in sporting activities). So I ask myself: why is A now hiding in the car and shaking, just because his dad has turned up at a match? There is insufficient material to justify such a dramatic response. A has been asked about this by CAFCASS and I have searched his account to try and understand why he might have genuinely responded with fear. I still cannot understand it. What he told CAFCASS was that he was worried his father "would be on the sidelines trying to manipulate me". The word "manipulate" is in my view an adult one. But even if I was to accept that A can properly use it, it makes no sense on the facts of this particular case. His dad has always been involved in sporting events.
79. So I search for alternative explanations. I note with interest and alarm that The Mother described The Father's behaviour to the school as "harassment and stalking". I understand that The Mother may not have wanted him to attend, but the behaviour she describes can in no way be characterised as "harassment and stalking". Her language is inflammatory, hyperbolic and misleading. It strikes me as far more likely that The Mother saw The Father at the match, and disseminated her own confected distress to all present, including the children. Whilst I have difficulty understanding how A might have independently feared being "manipulated" in this context, I have far less difficulty imagining that The Mother would have feared that The Father (whose contact had recently been stopped) would use the opportunity to rebuild the relationship with the children, and interpret this as him seeking to manipulate them. A's age-inappropriate use of the word "manipulation" then makes sense. Had she responded appropriately and simply told the children: 'oh, your dad's here, I wasn't expecting him but it will be nice for him to watch the match', I am quite satisfied that the children would not have been distressed in the way described.
The first court hearing
80. This took place on 7 August 2023. The order records that CAFCASS would only support direct contact if the parents agreed. The Father was seeking contact (even if it had to be supervised). The Mother rejected this "on the basis that the children do not wish to have contact with father".
81. The same order records that litigation of The Mother's historic domestic abuse allegations did not appear necessary.
82. Thus the order makes clear that the only material obstacle to direct contact, from The Mother's perspective, was the boys' wishes. The order goes on to direct a Section 7 report from CAFCASS by 20 November 2023. The order makes clear what would be dealt with in that report, and this includes "the wishes and feelings of the children". The Mother may have been representing herself but she is an intelligent lady and I am satisfied would have been aware that within the weeks which followed, an independent professional was going to be investigating and reporting on the children's wishes and feelings.
83. The parties agreed telephone contact to take place each Saturday at 3 PM.
The indirect telephone contact and The Mother's recordings
84. As with a number of allegations against The Mother of alienating behaviours, there is not in a strict sense a "finding of fact" to be made here. What is required is analysis and evaluation of an agreed fact. It is agreed between the parties that The Mother on multiple occasions questioned the children about their wishes regarding The Father, made audio recordings of the process, and sent them to CAFCASS.
85. CG's clear reasons for being very concerned by this behaviour are set out in her report. She was concerned that The Mother would have come across as critical of The Father. She also concluded that if this is how The Mother behaves in front of the children it is likely to impact upon their motivation to speak to or see their father. I agree with every word set out by the Guardian, but I think it is important that I go further, setting out details of the timing and content of the recordings, The Mother's motivations, and the degree of insight she has on the issue.
86. I start with a recording made on Saturday, 23 September 2023. The Mother starts by announcing the date. It sounds ominously like how a police officer would begin an interrogation. The significance of announcing the date is in my judgement twofold: firstly, because it demonstrates plainly that The Mother's premeditated intention was to produce forensic material. Secondly, because it removes all possibility that the children could have interpreted this as a natural parent-child interaction. Whilst still unacceptable, if The Mother had covertly recorded a natural conversation between her and the children, at least the children would have been none-the-wiser. By doing it in the way she did, it would have been obvious to the children that she had embarked upon an evidence-gathering exercise. She told the children that "your dad will be calling you at 3 PM today. Hopefully not a minute before or a minute after, as he has previous times". That is a hopeless remark for a mother to make about the children's father, in front of them. The message it sends is clear: your dad is unreliable; he doesn't do what he's supposed to; I am angry with him. The content of the introduction and The Mother's tone is wholly inappropriate and I felt very sorry for the children when I listened to the recording. The children say they do not want to speak to their father. They sound fed up with The Mother's questioning. Her questioning continued. The way she asked questions is in my judgement very revealing. She asked for reasons about why they did not want to see him and one of the children says "the same thing". The Mother would have known what this "thing" was, but tellingly she required the children to repeat it for the recording. When the children go on to say that they just want their father to leave them alone and don't really want to talk to him The Mother states "okay, not a problem". She is condoning and reinforcing what they are saying. She does nothing whatsoever to encourage contact. At the end of the recording she thanks the boys for their answers. The children are plainly uncomfortable and worn out by what she is doing and would have wanted it to last for as short a period as possible. They would have been motivated to give the answers which The Mother wanted, so as to bring the interview to an end.
87. There are very similar recordings on 26 August and 16 September but in these, The Mother doesn't tell them that their father will be ringing them, instead she uses his first name. Parents do not normally talk to eight-year-olds referring to their father by their first name. The only logical explanations as to why this mother did so are: I) that she generally refers to The Father by his name rather than 'dad' around the children, which undermines his status and/or II) she had failed to recognise that there were children involved in her evidence-gathering exercise and was focussed only on producing evidence for other adults. I am troubled by either scenario.
88. The Mother conducted these interviews every single Saturday from 19 August to 23 September 2023. In every single recording The Mother presents as litigious and hostile. In every single recording the boys present as worn out and miserable. In every single recording the boys were asked for a reason for not wanting to speak to their father, and in every single recording the children failed to provide any meaningful reason.
89. I regard The Mother's behaviour as abhorrent and reprehensible. If the children really had something meaningful to say in respect of their wishes and feelings towards their father, the recordings (of which I would still not have approved) would have been created in a different way: Covertly; at different times; when there was actually something notable to be said. What The Mother did was wait until the day the children should be having contact with their father, and then ask them quite coldly, week after week, whether they wanted to speak to him. The tone of the recordings gives no emotional space for the children to say anything other than 'no'.
90. What I find almost as appalling as the content of the recordings themselves is the The Mother's lack of awareness of how harmful her behaviour was. I remind myself that this evidence - which I have just deprecated - exists in the case because The Mother herself deliberately created it and relied upon it. I find that extraordinary. It is some of the most vivid and uncontroversial material in this case supporting the proposition that The Mother embroiled the children in processes designed to get The Mother what she wants, yet she apparently thought, before attaching the files and sending them to CAFCASS, that it was appropriate and would help her case. Her lack of self-awareness is astonishing.
91. I draw an additional conclusion from The Mother's conduct, which is best explained by reference to the timing of the recordings. As I have set out, there was a hearing on 7 August 2023 when the court directed a CAFCASS report to look at the children's wishes and feelings. It is apparent that The Mother was not willing to put her trust in that process. She plainly did not want to run the risk of the children telling CAFCASS something that she did not like. I see no other reason for why she started - just 12 days after the CAFCASS report was directed - weekly recordings of the children's negative wishes and feelings. That strikes me as relevant when I look, in due course, at the timing of other evidence emanating from the boys- allegedly spontaneously - around the time that professionals were producing reports in this case.
CAFCASS concerns
92. The Family Court Adviser filed a report on 17 November 2023 which raised concerns including the following:
a. B's school had described him as speaking about things "from an adult perspective" and using phrases that the school feel an eight-year-old should not know. To be clear I am quite satisfied that a school will be cognisant of the fact that language varies significantly from child to child. They are not simply describing a child with a mature vocabulary, because they go on to say that "there does not appear to be a boundary between adult conversation and adult to child conversation". This had plainly been a substantial concern because the school had spoken to The Mother about it.
b. The Father had raised concerns about the way The Mother spoke to the boys about him and FP. He said that The Mother refers to FP in front of the children as "fat" and that the children had told him this. I have decided on balance that he is telling the truth about that. Partly because of my general preference for him as a witness of truth. But also because, at the same time, he told CAFCASS that he is saved in The Mother's phone as "dickhead", something which The Mother admits, and therefore which I know that The Father was telling the truth about.
c. The children presented with negativity towards their father but the way they expressed this did not appear age-appropriate or adequately reasoned. For example B said he was worried about seeing his dad, but could not explain why. B did raise a concern that on one occasion he found his father in bed with FP. He does not describe this as being a particularly problematic observation (for example he does not describe witnessing sexual activity), rather what he says about it is that "he put her first". That strikes professionals - and me - as something an adult would say, not an eight-year-old. B said that they normally have healthy food on a Friday and The Father promised to make pasta-bake, but instead got burgers from the chip shop. Firstly, there is no inherent problem with burgers. B does not say he did not enjoy this meal. His problem appears to be that his father had given them a treat rather than cooking something healthy. I have not in my personal or professional life encountered an eight-year-old raising, as a concern about a parent, that they got a treat. I have however encountered lots of parents complain about another parent for doing this. This strikes me as something The Mother may well have a problem with, but I don't understand why B would. The fact that B appears to be adopting an adult narrative here is corroborated by the fact that - when asked how he felt - he said "trustless". It doesn't make sense that the issue he has described would have made him use this word. It does however make sense that The Mother had told B that what his dad did was wrong and that he can't be trusted, and that B has tried to communicate this. There are similar examples in respect of A. A told CAFCASS that his father is "horrible" and "takes things out on us". Asked for specifics, A said "not doing stuff with us at the weekends and we stay home". There was no detail which would adequately explain the sense of his father "taking things out on us".
The children's knowledge of the court proceedings, and 'the letter'
93. As part of her enquiries for her 17 November 2023 report CG asked B for an example of how The Father "turns nasty". It was in this specific context that B said "he has took us to court". I do not necessarily have a difficulty with children being told in an age-appropriate and sensitive way about the role of the Court. What disturbs me about these comments is twofold: 1) being 'taken to court' is an adult expression. No sensitive parent or professional would ever tell a child that the non-resident parent has 'taken you to court'. Neither child was seeing The Father at this time and so I conclude with confidence that The Mother has used this expression. I am fortified in this view by noting that The Mother has at times used the same expressions as the children when discussing court proceedings. Secondly, B told CAFCASS about this concern in response to a specific question, about how dad is nasty when he doesn't get his own way. B plainly interprets The Father taking him to court as something negative, and in respect of which The Father is culpable. He can only have got this impression from The Mother.
94. Some support for the notion that The Mother may have exposed the children to her own perception of Court proceedings can be found it the report of Dr G, which describes The Mother's presentation as "generally histrionic and dramatised".
95. The Mother's own statement in these proceedings supports the proposition that she was unable to withhold her response to the Court proceedings from the children. For example, she states that she had to send her father to collect the children from school (following the court decision that they should go back to the old school) "because I can become very emotional and I didn't want them to see my distress". Yet earlier in the statement she suggests that when she received the initial Court letter, she told everyone it didn't matter and popped it on the Welsh dresser. The totality of the evidence undermines the notion that she could and would have behaved in the calm manner she alleges.
96. I also note that B told Dr G that he has nightmares "about being taken away and dragged away". I am quite satisfied that CAFCASS have not given B information to cause such a fear. There is no evidence that The Father has, and he was of course not having contact with either child in the months leading up to their session with Dr G. There is no inherent likelihood, or specific evidence in this case, to support a child of B's age independently speculating and feeling anxious about removal from his mother's care. Despite my attempts to look for an alternative, I am wholly satisfied that B's deep-seated fears can only have come from things said by his mother.
97. The report also addresses this issue with A. A was asked how he knew about the court case and he said "mum told me about court dad kept it a secret". I'm not sure that there could be a clearer statement from a child to support the conclusion that The Mother has behaved inappropriately and The Father has not.
98. In her statement The Mother concedes it is "easy to come to the conclusion that B speaks from an adult's perspective or using adult language". She goes on to attempt to suggest this simply reflects his intelligence. She produces a poem from B. I am not an educational expert but I have spent very considerable time in the company of children of B's age, and I have read the poem with care. It strikes me as being unremarkable and age-appropriate. Even if I concluded that it demonstrated a command of the English language beyond his years, it would not in any sense support The Mother's case. The concern of professionals is not that B has a mature and finessed vocabulary, it is that he is able to speak about harmful adult themes. It strikes me that The Mother is deliberately missing the point here.
99. I turn now to B's letter. He was wholly hostile to The Father, stating that he had "destroyed my life" (although doesn't say how) and that he does not want after-school contact. I have already set out substantial detail as to why I found The Mother's evidence to be completely unbelievable on this issue. I make this additional observation: The Mother told me that she saw the outside of the envelope. B refers to his father by his first name and surname. The formality is disturbing. An adequate main carer should have identified that this was unusual, problematic and something that should be discussed with B. The Mother has not mentioned any concern about it. It seems to me most likely that The Mother not attributing any significance to B referring to his father in this way is wholly consistent with The Father's case that the children stopped calling him "dad" and had started calling him by his name.
100. The overwhelmingly likelihood is this: The Mother had been desperate to demonstrate to professionals that the children did not want contact (evidenced by the repeated audio recordings). This backfired and - rather than persuading professionals that there should be no contact - she was criticised by CAFCASS who went on to recommend direct contact. The Mother 'upped her game' at this point by causing B to set out his hostility towards contact in a letter directly to his father. I am persuaded this is what happened primarily because of I) The Mother's inconsistent and unbelievable account as to the letter's creation and II) timing: the CAFCASS report was dated 17 November 2023 and specifically recommended contact after school. This is precisely what B argued against in his letter a few days later.
The school move
101. On 18 December 2023 The Father received an email from The Mother's solicitors stating that she had recently moved to a confidential address and that in consequence the children would both be moving to a new school in January 2024. I stress that the school move had not yet happened.
102. On 21 December 2023 The Father's solicitor wrote to The Mother's solicitor telling them that he did not agree with a change of school. It is clear that, on the same day, The Mother was told of The Father's position.
103. Thus The Mother had a decision to make. The salient facts, all of which were fully known to The Mother were these: I) there were ongoing court proceedings, II) The Father has parental responsibility, III) The Father has specifically stated through his lawyers that he does not agree with the children moving school in January. The Mother's decision in light of these facts? She moved both children to the new school anyway.
104. The Mother's actions were unilateral, sneaky and reckless. Unilateral because The Father was never consulted, and when he gave his clear view he was ignored. Sneaky because she waited until just before Christmas to announce her plans, and waited until after the children had started the new school to declare that the plan had been implemented. Reckless because she must have known the Court may reverse the decision, with very significant impact on the boys, but she decided to take that risk on their behalf.
105. On 9 January The Father applied for a Prohibited Steps Order and Specific Issue Order such that The Mother's unilateral change of school could be reversed. On 17 January 2024 the court unsurprisingly made a Specific Issue Order requiring the boys to return to their previous school.
106. I asked The Mother in her oral evidence to reflect on the issue of a change of school, in particular its significance for a child. She told me that a school move is quite a significant life event for a child. It is beyond any doubt that she alone bears the responsibility for inflicting two school changes in quick succession on the children. I am not suggesting that she should have given up on the school-change issue. But all she had to do was consult The Father and then, if the move was not agreed, wait for this to be determined. She ploughed on regardless. I do not consider there was any welfare justification for proceeding in the way that she did. Her decision can only have been motivated by I) complete disregard for The Father's position and a desire to exclude him from this important issue and II) a contemptuous (and wrong) belief that by ploughing on unilaterally, the outcome would be a fait accompli.
107. The behaviour also demonstrates that she does not think to consider (or considers and then disregards) that the boys have two parents and that significant changes in the boys' day-to-day lives are not solely up to her.
108. By proceeding in the way that she did, she inflicted harm (by way of instability and confusion) on both children. The Mother has given the impression that a school move was simply a logical step in the sense that the new school would have been closer to where she had moved. But following the children's Court-ordered return to their previous school, The Mother alleged that things were becoming seriously problematic for the children. She said that moving back to the previous school was "having a devastating effect on their mental health". She said that B in particular "constantly refuses to leave the car and has to be collected by a member of staff which is making him extremely distressed and anxious". There is independent support for the notion that the school moves were harmful: the school tell me that things were essentially very positive for B when in his original school (settled, keen to participate, good relationships with teachers and peers). However when he returned to the school in January he is described as reluctant to come to school, often arriving late, and needing to be supported into school from the car park because he refuses to leave the car "and sometimes mum can be upset".
109. Conversely, The Mother paints an artificially rosy portrait of the time the children had spent in their new school (which was only about a week). She tells me that both children were happier, were thriving, that their mental health had improved, and that B had been awarded "star of the week".
110. Thus the children had moved schools and no doubt been told by The Mother that this would be their permanent new school. Children naturally invest in a new environment as best they can. This was all then stripped away and the children returned to their old school. There is no doubt that The Mother will have deeply resented the Court's reversal of her plan.
111. The impact of The Mother's actions went way beyond instability and inconvenience for the children. It profoundly affected B's relationship with his original school and has undermined his learning and his relationships. This harm was entirely attributable to The Mother, but she manipulated the situation so as to blame The Father. A told Dr G that "they had gone to court and they had lost and he had to return to his old school and this was all because of his father".
The confidential address
112. This is not a matter of great significance, but I note that when The Mother moved house (which prompted the school move) she required her address to be confidential. In his oral evidence The Father expressed surprise about this step, because he had always known where The Mother and the boys lived post-separation, and there is no evidence that he abused that knowledge, or that there was any incident at their home. The Mother's decision to now withhold not only her address, but the address where the parties' children would be living, strikes me as unexplained by any factual development in the case. During the hearing I have been provided with email correspondence including an argument about where The Father was required to park at The Mother's property during handovers. This clearly caused stress for The Mother. But all contact had stopped and The Father had not been parking problematically, or at all, or loitering, or doing anything near The Mother's property since then.
113. I note that in her oral evidence she was asked about this and said "he doesn't need to know where my children... where I am living". I am satisfied she realised her misstep hence the shift in her answer. The start of her answer, given bitterly and instinctively, seemed to reveal that she did not think he had the right to know where his children lived.
The children's counselling
114. The Mother took the children to the GP who in turn referred the children (on 18 September 2023) to a counselling service. The children had counselling sessions between November 2023 and February 2024. The reason given for the referral was "recently suffered emotional abuse". The Mother appears to have misrepresented the basis for the referral in her own evidence which she suggests was "to help them with coping and managing with their feelings and how to process them".
115. The Mother did not tell The Father she was planning to do this or that it was happening. That was wrong. The children had a significant number of counselling sessions and this was an important step in their lives. The context also makes it particularly significant: this occurred during Family Court proceedings and into the period when an expert psychologist had been instructed.
116. I am further concerned by the timing and detail giving rise to the referral. It appears The Mother sought counselling for the children soon after the CAFCASS report was ordered, and at a time when she was making weekly audio recordings demanding the children's views about contact. I do not know what the "recent" emotional abuse was said to be. The Father was not having contact with them so I am unclear what he could have done to fit this description. I can see that The Mother's behaviours (exposure to inappropriate information about court proceedings, recording the children's wishes and feelings) could constitute emotional abuse but I doubt she was seeking counselling in respect of something she thought she had done wrong. The most likely scenario in my view is that this was part of The Mother's campaign to demonstrate to professionals - just as she had with the audio recordings and the letter - that there really was something to be worried about and that the children must be heard. In other words, evidence-gathering.
The boys' allegations to the police
117. One quite staggering feature of this case is that The Mother deliberately withheld the fact of an ongoing police investigation from all parties and the Court for many months.
118. The Mother confidently asserts, both in her evidence and through her advocate in cross examination, that she has an excuse: she was following advice from her solicitor. I need to be careful here because there is indeed a letter from The Mother's then solicitor, waiving privilege, and setting out advice which was given. The letter is dated 21 November 2024 and at paragraph two it confirms that The Mother was told that the fact of an ongoing police investigation should not be disclosed "to the other side". I find that advice extremely surprising. In my 17 years doing family law I do not recall being involved in a case concerning children where a party has intentionally withheld an ongoing investigation by the police from all other parties (including the Guardian) and from the Judge for many months. It deprives the Guardian of an opportunity to take steps which are in the interests of the children. It deprives the Judge of the opportunity of determining (perhaps without notice to another party in the first instance) how the sharing of information will be managed.
119. The letter refers to discussions between The Mother and her lawyer in April 2024. This was of course immediately after the boys' allegations had been made to the police. The person providing the advice may not have contemplated that the investigation would take so long, and that their advice would be relied upon by The Mother for withholding the information for a further five months. The person providing the advice had been told by The Mother that "the children had reported to the police what they had reported to Dr G". That would give the impression that they have not reported anything new. That was a wrong impression provided by The Mother. I do not know whether the same advice would have been provided if The Mother had told the full story (i.e. that they had made more significant and different allegations).
120. Whilst The Mother appears to have waived privilege in respect of communication with, and advice from, her lawyer, she has limited it to this single letter. I note that there is no evidence produced by The Mother (despite the very significant criticism which has been made of her in respect of her decision to withhold the fact of the investigation for many months) to suggest that she ever reviewed the need for openness with the other parties or the Court.
121. The Father told me in evidence that it is understandable people generally follow advice, but there are limits. He intimated that as parents and litigants they are entitled and required to reject advice when it is plainly wrong and not give blind deference to what may be said by lawyers. I agree with him.
122. It seems very clear to me that The Mother spoke with a solicitor (but not her usual solicitor) early on during the police investigation, failed to give that solicitor the complete picture, was pleased with the advice she was given, and relied upon it for many months. The Mother apparently had no appetite to review the position and was content for the litigation to carry on from April until September with neither the Judge, The Father or the Guardian having any knowledge that significant allegations had been made, and that the children were embroiled in a police investigation.
123. Therefore The Mother's reliance on legal advice is only part of the overall picture. The Mother could and should have taken steps to review that issue and had she done so in an honest and transparent way, I'm satisfied the information would have been shared earlier. I note I am not alone in this view: District Judge Montanaro has also expressed a significant concern about the non-disclosure of this relevant information to professionals. The Guardian has expressed "grave concerns" about the information not being shared in a timely way. She reminds me that therapeutic plans for the family have been formulated without the expert being privy to the significant updating information.
The Mother' position on the relevance of allegations within the litigation
124. The order dated 7 August 2023 (at a time when The Mother was representing herself) recorded that CAFCASS did not think litigation of The Mother's allegations of domestic abuse was necessary because I) they were historic and II) direct contact had been taking place since. The order dated 10 October 2024 records that the parties went on holiday in 2017, that The Mother alleges she made allegations in 2022 about The Father's conduct on holiday and that The Father was contacted by the police on 8 October 2024. The order goes on to record that The Mother "agrees this is irrelevant to the question of child arrangements". I should add that in The Mother's oral evidence said she made the report to the police in 2023.
125. Turning then to the allegations of physical harm raised by the boys in the police investigation. On 10 October 2024 The Mother's position was that the allegations were not a barrier to contact, and that she did not seek a finding of fact hearing in respect of them. 46 days later her position had completely changed such that she did then allege, at the hearing on 25 November 2024 that the allegations were a barrier to contact taking place. She doesn't explain why.
Not keeping The Father updated about the children
126. I have already addressed specific issues such as the counselling. Beyond this, The Mother has demonstrated a hostile approach towards keeping The Father updated whilst he was not seeing the children. In her evidence she told me she has done this "because I am not his PA anymore". This is problematic because it harks back to her resentment of him when they were in a relationship, rather than focusing on the needs of the children.
127. She also made remarks in her own evidence which are disingenuous and unbelievable. For example where she maintains that "it did not cross my mind that he may want to see photographs". In this day and age, sharing photographs with friends and family is technologically straightforward and very common. The notion that it would never have crossed her mind that The Father would want to see photos of the children he was not seeing is something I cannot accept.
Additional considerations
128. I should stress here that whilst in my view the most helpful way to structure this written judgment has been to start with matters in chronological order, the decision-making process does not take place in that way. I have throughout had the totality of the evidence in mind. I set out here some of the additional considerations which I have pondered throughout.
129. There are arguments in support of The Mother's position regarding alienating behaviours which I should address. Firstly, there was significant staying contact between the boys and their father post separation: if The Mother was simply 'anti-contact' why would this have been agreed? I have weighed this consideration in the balance. But it has little force in my view given the persuasive arguments from The Father that The Mother's position turned hostile around January 2023 because she was angry about him prioritising his new relationship.
130. Linked to this is an oddity in the chronology: contact stopped in January 2023, but The Father is clear that he met FP in January 2022 and the boys were introduced to her in March 2022. I am struggling to form any clear views as to the probative value of this timeline. On the one hand it can plausibly be argued that if The Mother was angry at The Father being in a new relationship, why didn't she stop contact in early 2022? Equally plausibly it can be said that if the children had been seeing FP since March 2022, isn't it surprising that they didn't have any major problems with her until fairly suddenly in January 2023? Thus there are arguments both ways. This oddity in the chronology does not undermine the link between The Father cancelling a Monday contact with the boys in January 2023 in order to prioritise picking FP up from contact, the subsequent hostile text message to which I have referred, and then a cessation in contact.
131. A further intriguing feature of this case is that A continued attending weekend contact for around five months after B stopped. If The Mother was completely hostile to The Father, why would she have permitted this? In my view there is little probative value in this insofar as it is capable of supporting The Mother's case. The central contention in this case is not simply that The Mother stopped contact, it is that she turned the children against their father. Children are individuals and it is of course possible that she was successful with B but that it took longer with A. There is material within the evidence to support this proposition. The school report, for example, that whereas his brother has at times expressed worries, "A has been keen to remove himself from discussions and has said that he does not want to get involved". It is entirely possible that B was more receptive to The Mother's influence than A. A further potential explanation derives from the chronology provided by The Father. A was going for weekend contact from January 2023 onwards. The Father issued his application to the Family Court in May 2023. The first administrative order was made on 25 May 2023 which listed the first hearing in August. A's contact stopped within a month of The Mother receiving the May order. It is entirely possible that to support her position in the litigation she exerted further influence upon A so as to stop his contact with The Father before any Court hearings took place.
132. I should also make clear that I have considered throughout what, if any, culpable role has been played by The Father. I have referenced a somewhat sarcastic text message in a thread produced by him. It is unlikely that this was the only time he has presented in this way (although I do not regard it as serious misconduct). I have also seen email correspondence between the parties which is plainly conflictual and generally unattractive on both sides. There are also a limited number of instances where The Father probably should, with hindsight, have behaved differently. For example - and regardless of what I have said about the mother's participation in this - I am told he remained at A' sporting match for about one hour despite the distress which was being caused. He probably should have left more quickly. To be clear though, I do not regard him as culpable for causing difficulties in the first place. He has not attended a match since.
133. I also take into account that the children have made various remarks about him. Many of these have already been detailed. I have already set out why they lack detail, significance or logic. Generally speaking that is also the interpretation of CAFCASS and Dr G. In this sense I find myself independently agreeing with Dr G who said that both children "make statements which were not aligned to their developmental age and provided anecdotes to explain their rejection of their father which simply did not provide a proportionate rationale for their rejection". I agree also with the Guardian who, as long ago as November 2023, said this: "the children's complaints about their father before arrangements broke down were issues that could have been resolved for the children by their parents or using a third party to communicate amicably and address the issues".
134. The current therapist Dr T provides a "clinical view" that "parental alienation is too narrow a view with which to try and understand the emotional experience of B and A...". I place much less weight on the opinion of Dr T than Dr G. The former is providing a clinical view, the latter is an expert witness. Dr G has also had the entire court bundle and undertaken interviews in that context, which have included psychometric and other testing, with a specific remit. Dr G's report is also exceptionally thorough, and in my view provides a greater evidential basis for the conclusions that she reaches. I accept what Mr Wilson says in his closing submissions but it strikes me that the intended purpose of requiring a contribution from Dr T was about implementation and progress rather than an expert opinion as to the original problem. I also agree with Ms Steele's closing submissions on this point.
135. I note that Dr G suggests that some of The Mother's behaviours may be unconscious. Her own therapist has described some of her behaviours (for example the school move) as "impulsive". I confess I have difficulties with both characterisations. Some of the behaviours I have described continued in a quite deliberate way. For example, I am not dealing with one audio recording, but weekly recordings. Similarly the school issue may have started impulsively, but there was over a fortnight between The Mother being told by The Father's lawyers that the school move was not agreed, and The Mother nevertheless proceeding to commence them at the new school.
136. I should also mention that in my judgement The Mother at times hides behind an asserted naïveté as to what is right and wrong in court proceedings, when this provides no defence. For example in respect of the audio recordings, she tells me that she was representing herself at the time and "I didn't know the court process and I did not know that recordings were not allowed to be sent or ask the children anything". Knowledge of the Court process is irrelevant. My finding that the audio recordings were completely inappropriate and constitute emotional harm is based not on my status as a lawyer, but as a human being.
137. With an eye on legal principles, I of course consider the totality of Dr G's report insofar as it assists with the issue of alignment. Dr G opines that both children have developed the perception that they are responsible for managing and resolving their mother's distress and that this is a central element of their motivation for rejecting their father. I weigh this in the balance in understanding the children's rejection of their father. But the expert goes on to be extremely concerned that "these children have entirely and unjustifiably rejected one half of their identity". Furthermore given the findings of fact which are made elsewhere in this judgment, this is not a case where the children's rejection of their father relates primarily or even substantially to the issue of alignment or their relationship and attachment with their mother. The hostility has primarily been caused by The Mother's deliberate attempts to make them hostile towards The Father.
Allegations made by the children against their father
138. Again I stress that this judgment has been constructed as a whole, not compartmentalising the different allegations and pieces of evidence. However it struck me as most helpful to set out in writing the chronological events first because the reader then has an understanding of the context of the police allegations.
139. The Mother claims that the children provided an account to her in March 2024, "immediately following Dr G's appointment at their school". The detail of what the boys allegedly told The Mother on that date is recorded as a recital to an earlier order. I need not set out precisely what is recorded, but for ease of reference the incidents are: I) an incident with B, dragging him downstairs for a meal (undated), II) an incident with A surrounding the Xbox in June 2023 and, III) an incident with B being kicked and shoved in his bedroom (undated). The Mother agreed in her oral evidence that much of the detail recorded in this order was not reported to the police.
140. The same order records The Mother's assertion that the boys told her straight after the appointment with Dr G that they had told Dr G about the incidents I have mentioned in the previous paragraph, and that the children "requested to report these to the police". The Mother's position is that the boys made further requests (plural) for their mother to phone the police.
141. The first part I wish to interrogate are the discussions between The Mother and the children immediately following their appointment with Dr G. I think most parents would, after such a significant appointment with a professional, ask the children how it had gone. The Mother appears to have gone further, because she told me in her oral evidence that she spoke with each child individually and they told her exactly what had been said in the appointment. It is theoretically possible that a child would give a blow by blow account of an important appointment, including setting out - as The Mother states they did - precisely what factual allegations they had made. What makes me sceptical about the likelihood of this occurring spontaneously in this particular case is the fact that when The Mother recorded the boys in August and September 2023, she asked them time and time again for the reason as to why they did not want to see their father. They never gave a convincing answer and certainly never started talking about specific allegations. I therefore find it difficult to believe that without substantial prompting, they would have produced the blow-by-blow account as suggested after the meeting with Dr G.
142. I also struggle with the discrepancy in the allegations actually made. As I have set out, it is The Mother's case that the three allegations I have referred to already were provided to her by the children, reflecting what they had told Dr G. But B's allegations were not made to Dr G. Allegation two was (A and the Xbox) but in respect of this, Dr G tells me that the allegation "seems to have been significantly escalated and dramatised" since it was shared with her (although I do temper the significance given to this description in light of the persuasive submission made by Mr Wilson in his closing submissions). I am struggling to understand why the children would have said (though not of course in these words) 'these are the allegations we made to Dr G', when in fact they were not.
143. The Mother called 101 on 16 April 2024. Her case is that the police advised her the allegations constituted assaults and therefore officers were dispatched to the family home. The children were video interviewed in June 2024. The Father was interviewed by the police in September 2024.
144. The timing of the boys' allegations requires very careful scrutiny. I remind myself that some of the matters alleged by the boys were said to have occurred as long ago as 2022, yet they did not make their allegations until 2024. The Mother has not raised any concern as to the relationship that she has with the children, in other words why they would withhold traumatic experiences from her. Quite the contrary. She sets out as early as the CAFCASS safeguarding letter the things which she alleges the children were saying to her about time spent in the care of The Father. It strikes me as completely bizarre that children would have a sufficiently open relationship with their mother such that they can explain that they don't feel prioritised by The Father now that he has a new girlfriend, but not tell their mother that there have been repeated traumatic incidents of physical assault.
145. The next surprising aspect of the timing is that The Mother does not allege that, in retrospect, she could see significant changes in the boys' behaviour around the time of the alleged incidents. These incidents would have been traumatic for the boys. Take for example the suggestion that one of the children was barricaded in his room such that he wet himself. It would surprise me if such an event occurred with no contemporaneous emotional fallout, yet The Mother produces no evidence of this.
146. The next surprising aspect of the timing is that both children continued to go to contact with their father, B until January 2023 and A until June 2023 and have not said, between the dates of these allegedly traumatic episodes with their father, and the date of them stopping contact, that anything untoward had happened. This feature is all the more surprising when one scrutinises her comments to CAFCASS. She told CAFCASS that A only carried on seeing his father between January and June 2023 because he was scared of his dad. Surely if that was true, it would have prompted conversations between A and his mother. I would have expected The Mother to have asked A: what are you scared about? What do you think your dad would do? Has he done anything that makes you scared? And in turn I would have expected A to have made the allegations (if they were true). But he didn't. Even in the context of allegedly telling his mum he was scared of what his dad might do, he never mentioned the things his dad had already done.
147. The next surprising aspect of the timing is that neither of these children had seen their father since June 2023. So if, for example, the children had not been brave enough to make the allegations while there was an ongoing direct relationship with their father, I would assume they would have been free to do so from at least the summer of 2023 because they were simply not seeing him. Why wait until March 2024?
148. The next surprising aspect of these allegations is that the boys did not make any allegations to CAFCASS. It is clear from the Guardian's earlier report that these children did, in general terms, feel entirely able to moan about and criticise their father. They are not being protective of him. Quite the opposite. Why would the children - in a very negative mindset towards their father, for example criticising him for getting burgers instead of making pasta bake - not also tell the professional that he has assaulted them on multiple occasions? It makes absolutely no sense in my view that children presenting with a clear narrative against The Father would omit all reference to the most significant aspects of ill treatment. In fact, it is clear from the CAFCASS report that they were asked questions which would surely have permitted allegations to be made, if they were true. B for example said that he is "worried seeing dad" but could not say what it was that worried him. I note that B described his father as turning "nasty", but when he was asked for an example, he did not make any allegations about physical assault. What he said is that "he has took us to court".
149. The next surprising aspect of these allegations is that the children had not told anybody at school about these events either. Nor had any emotional fallout, contemporaneous to the events described, been noted.
150. For The Mother to successfully prove the truth of the boys' allegations, the circumstances would have to be as follows: the boys suffered significant physical mistreatment in 2022 and 2023. They didn't tell a soul, even though they were happy to gripe about their dad in other ways. They kept seeing their father. After they stopped seeing their father they didn't tell their mum, or anybody, about what he had done to them. They have never told any professional until partially to Dr G (a complete stranger). Then for the first time, in March or April 2024 they remembered these detailed allegations, and insisted that their mother report their father to the police. Many aspects of this seem unlikely, and the scenario when looked at as a whole strikes me as completely unbelievable. There is no direct or wider canvas evidence (for example from school) to support this scenario as being credible.
151. There is, however, an alternative explanation which is far more logical. The Mother concedes that she phoned the police reporting the allegations very quickly after receipt of Dr G's report. There are a number of reasons as to why the content of Dr G's report would have caused The Mother difficulty. Firstly it raises serious concerns about her. Secondly it recommended progression towards shared care, something to which The Mother was and is firmly opposed. Thirdly, and perhaps of most relevance in the context of what followed, The Mother has clearly alleged that she rejects Dr G's methodology and does not believe that she "had thoroughly obtained a complete understanding of the issues, allegations or underlying issues" in the allegedly limited interviews with the parties. Another way of interpreting these remarks is that she was dissatisfied that the children did not tell Dr G everything that she wanted them to, and required them to give a fuller story to the police.
152. The relationship between The Mother's alleged alienating behaviours and her position on domestic abuse requires careful consideration. It has been in my mind throughout but now is a convenient opportunity to address it. The recent Family Justice Council guidance makes clear the interrelationship between alienating behaviours and allegations of domestic abuse. Intellectual vigilance is required here. It is right to say that the fact that there has not and will not be a finding of fact hearing (and therefore no positive findings of domestic abuse) does not mean it ceases to be a relevant consideration.
153. That said there are a number of specific features of this case which cause some concern. The alleged domestic abuse is said by The Mother to have occurred on holiday in 2017. It was not reported to the police at that time and the parents remained in a relationship until 2021. Post-separation both children were permitted significant staying contact with their father which would suggest the allegation was not a barrier to safe contact. Within these proceedings The Mother has not sought a fact-finding hearing in respect of the allegations.
154. Whilst I note that The Mother referenced these allegations at the beginning of the proceedings (e.g. in the CAFCASS Safeguarding Letter), what is most significant in my judgement is the stage at which The Mother reported her allegations to the police. She has variously maintained that she reported matters to the police in 2022 and 2023, but the documentary evidence available to me makes clear that she in fact reported matters in April 2024. Her case, as I have explained, is that the boys - despite never making allegations to anybody previously - had a sudden and persistent wish for the police to be contacted in April 2024. That is precisely the same time that The Mother would also make allegations to the police about domestic abuse (despite not having done so in the seven years since the alleged events occurred). It strikes me as very unlikely that The Mother and the children would - independently of each other, but at exactly the same time - reach the identical conclusion that the police needed to be contacted about historical allegations. I think the reporting to the police by The Mother and the children is linked. I reject The Mother's contention that it was the children who independently had an appetite to approach the police. Far more likely is that the events in April 2024 represented a ramping up of her penchant for increasingly desperate evidence gathering to prevent contact. An obvious theme is present: when the proceedings started, she sent them for counselling; when a CAFCASS report was directed she started weekly recordings of the children's views; when the CAFCASS report was received she participated in and supported B writing a letter to his father; when the children spoke with the expert she questioned them about what they had said; when the expert's report was received, she took the children to the police.
155. I turn now to evaluate specifically what the boys have said in support of the allegations made. Mr Wilson relied in cross examination and in closing submissions to specific detail in the psychological assessment, for example in respect of a personality trait suggesting concealment. I do not completely dismiss the relevance of this but in my view the sort of testing deployed by the expert can only provide possibilities of general aspects of somebody's personality. I place limited weight on these matters, as compared with the other more probative evidence I have heard.
156. It is also suggested that there is some consistency in what the boys have said. At times that is true. I agree with Mr Wilson that in forensic terms the difference between a "pull" and a "grab" is not a probative inconsistency. Some of the content provided by the children is consistent between the April allegations and those made in June, which is capable of lending some support to the truth of them. I am also not convinced by each of the criticisms made on The Father's behalf about the language used by the children (for example the reference to feet and yards: I have insufficient knowledge of the children's vocabulary to know whether the language is suspicious).
157. Balanced against that, and in addition to my own independent analysis of the evidence, I have a document of significant forensic value annexed to Ms Dasani's closing submissions. There are undoubtedly inconsistencies between the children's accounts as demonstrated in that document. It also highlights aspects of the evidence upon which I should comment: despite describing a significant bruise, there is no evidence that anybody saw this. I also struggle to understand (based on The Father's detailed discussion with me in his oral evidence) how the ladder could have been used to do what is alleged.
158. The real difficulty in this case, when evaluating the issue of consistency, is that on the one hand I am being told by The Mother that the allegations are true, which can be supported by elements of consistency. The Father is alleging that the allegations are subject to influence and potentially coaching. Consistency can also be entirely compatible with that scenario. It is possible for a true account to feature sometimes very significant inconsistencies, particularly when dealing with children. It is also possible for a false and coached or influenced account to be consistent, precisely because it has been rehearsed and the child has a fixed agenda as to what they will be required to say. In the specific and nuanced context of this litigation, therefore, I am struggling to attach substantial weight either to arguments of consistency or inconsistency, because both are capable of supporting either party's essential case.
159. The Mother told me that the allegations were prompted by subject matter raised at school. This is theoretically possible but does not strike me as at all likely. As I have said the children would have known full well that their father behaving in the way alleged was wrong and hurtful both physically and emotionally. They have been able to tell professionals all about other things they say their father has done wrong, and I don't consider it credible that they would not have realised that the matters they went on to allege were abusive until they were told this during some pastoral activity at school.
Summary of Findings
160. I start with the children's allegations against their father. These findings are not proved on the balance of probabilities. A comprehensive understanding of why I take this view can be gleaned from the totality of my judgment. In summary: other than the fact that the children have made allegations, there are barely any meaningful matters supporting the truth of them (other than perhaps some elements of consistency but - as I have said - these could equally be indicative of an influenced account). The totality of my analysis leads me to the clear view that the truth of these allegations is - in the highest order - compromised by their extraordinarily suspicious timing, the context in which they arise, and the lack of contemporaneous corroboration.
161. I turn next to The Father's allegations against The Mother. I have had the Schedule in mind throughout the trial and when preparing this judgment, but in my view it is appropriate to set out here a list of my own findings based on the foregoing analysis. On the balance of probabilities I am satisfied that:
a. On 10 January 2023 The Mother created and sent a message to The Father purporting to be from the children, which was hostile to contact.
b. The Mother''s hostility causing the above text message to be sent, and generally in January 2023, was motivated - wholly or in part - by her perception that The Father was prioritising his relationship FP.
c. When The Father attended a sporting event in April 2023 The Mother's unjustified, histrionic and manipulative behaviour caused the children unnecessary and significant distress.
d. The Mother showed significant mistrust of - and sought to undermine - the independent ascertainment of the children's wishes and feelings by CAFCASS. Whilst the report was being prepared she commenced weekly audio recordings of the children's wishes and feelings. The way the recordings were undertaken embroiled the children in a wholly unnatural and harmful forensic activity. The Mother's cold, formal tone, and the nature of her interviews generally, left no possibility for the children to be anything other than negative about The Father. The entire process was exhausting and miserable for the children and its weekly repetition contributed to them learning that the path of least resistance was conformity with The Mother's hostility to contact. The fact that the mother maintained that this was appropriate, and circulated the evidence herself, shows impoverished insight and the prioritisation of evidence-gathering above the emotional safety of children.
e. By November 2023 the children had learned from The Mother a wholly inappropriate narrative including being exposed to her referring to their father as a "dickhead", referring to FP as "fat" and demonstrating age-inappropriate knowledge and language.
f. The children were exposed by The Mother to inappropriate information about the court proceedings. They have been influenced to believe that court proceedings are wholly negative and brought by The Father. One direct consequence of this was that B feared being taken away from his mother.
g. The Mother supported B to write a hostile letter to his father in direct response to the recommendations made by CAFCASS (which she had shared with him) and supported him to deliver this to The Father's home on the weekend of 25-26 November 2023.
h. The Mother unilaterally took steps to change the children's schools when she knew she should have consulted with The Father. She continued to progress the move even when she had been told that he objected. Causing the children to change school twice in quick succession has compromised their education and caused emotional harm. The Mother then proceeded to tell the children that the harm she had caused was in fact caused by The Father.
i. The Mother unilaterally engaged the children in counselling without consulting or informing The Father. The primary purpose of the counselling was evidence gathering, not clinical need.
j. The Mother caused the children to make false allegations about their father to the police in order to obstruct contact. Influencing and encouraging a false narrative about The Father and causing them to be subject to police interviews caused significant emotional harm.
k. The Mother withheld the fact of the police investigation from all parties and the Court between April and September 2024. The Mother was pleased with the legal advice given in April 2024 and wrongly relied upon this for a further five months despite knowing that she should have revisited this with her representatives and/or the Guardian.
l. The Mother has on numerous occasions taken steps to ensure that The Father is excluded from the lives of the children. Examples of this are: I) requiring the children's new address to be confidential without justification, II) preventing the father from attending hospital for an important operation, III) failing to provide updates such as photographs in a timely way.
162. I have cross-referenced these findings to the schedule. I have detailed findings in accordance with my own analysis of the evidence. I am entirely satisfied that my findings in no way go beyond the known parameters of the case and essentially set out matters which were pleaded in the Schedule and dealt with in the evidence. To the extent that there are additional matters pleaded in the schedule which I have not dealt with specifically above, I confirm that this is because I am satisfied that they will not assist either way in determining welfare outcomes in this case.
163. I remind myself here of the guidance in respect of alienating behaviours and the three necessary elements. The children are reluctant, resisting or refusing (RRR) to engage in a relationship with the father. That is self-evident from everything I have said, and probably agreed in any event. Secondly, the RRR cannot be understood by attachment, affinity or alignment. There is no plausible explanation for their RRR other than the actions of The Mother. Thirdly, in consequence of the findings I have set out, I am satisfied that The Mother has engaged in behaviours that have directly and indirectly impacted on the children leading to their RRR.
164. Both children have suffered significant emotional harm attributable to the actions of The Mother.
Final Comments
165. In my view, and subject to the discretion of District Judge Montanaro (to whom this case will be returned) the parties need to consider that a line has now been drawn in the sand. Proceedings are almost always stressful for the adults involved, and for the children. The harmful impact of these proceedings on these children is at the very top end. These children require a decision about where they will live, and the time they will spend with the other parent, and they need that decision quickly. The Court in my view has a significant amount of evidence as to the needs of the children and the capacity of both parents to meet those needs. This judgment will, I hope, significantly enhance that understanding. Robust and perhaps difficult decisions need to be taken -of course with care - in a timescale which is compatible with the children's needs.
166. Mr Wilson gently reminds me in his closing submissions that decisions about changing where the children live should not be a punishment of parents or a knee-jerk reaction. Rather they must only be based on a holistic evaluation by reference to the paramountcy principle and the welfare checklist. I agree.
167. Having said that, there is a renewed need for the parties (and possibly the expert, although I will hear further submissions about that) to evaluate afresh the arrangements for these children. The Guardian has been very concerned about the children since her report 16 months ago. Dr G said she would seriously consider the suitability of the children remaining in The Mother care if the court made findings of fact along the lines I now have. These proceedings have, for 96 weeks, featured significant uncertainty as to what factual issues would be litigated, let alone what the answer to that litigation might be. All of that has now been settled. I will invite submissions as to what welfare evidence is now required in order to make interim and/or final decisions for these vulnerable children.
168. Finally I should say that given the need for judicial continuity in cases like this, and particularly in circumstances where I have dealt with the fact-finding hearing, I have considered reserving the case to me and have discussed this with District Judge Montanaro. Unfortunately because of my own commitments I could not hear the case again until at least June 2025, and have limited availability even after that for this case (which may require a number of further hearings). It is for these reasons that the matter will be returned and remain reserved to District Judge Montanaro.
169. That is the judgment of the Court.
Recorder Wells
28 March 2025