[2007]JRC154
royal court
(Family Division)
8th August 2007
Before : |
Sir Philip Bailhache, Kt. Bailiff, and Jurats Allo and Liddiard. |
Between |
B |
Applicant |
|
|
|
And |
M-R |
Respondent |
Advocate S. E. Fitz for the Applicant.
Advocate R. E. Colley for the Respondent.
judgment
the bailiff:
1. We will deal first of all with the contempt of Court. One of the foundations of civilised society is a respect for the rule of law and obedience to orders of the Court.
2. We understand very well the difficulties and emotions generated by the breakdown of any close relationship. We think you understand very well what is meant by the obligation to provide full information about the children's lives, but for a number of reasons you decided that you did not want to do that. A refusal to comply with a Court order is something which the Court cannot tolerate and we have to punish you for that contempt.
3. The order of the Court is that you will pay a fine of £1,000. That fine is to be paid within 7 days and in default of payment you will go to prison for 10 days.
4. We turn now to the application of the Respondent for supervised contact with his son S which has in effect been withdrawn upon terms. This is a melancholy case. Until 2003 or thereabouts the Respondent had regular contact with his children. Following the service of proceedings in the English Court the petitioner returned to Jersey with the children and from that time relations between the parties have slid further and further downhill.
5. The manner in which the process of the English Court was served in a London street has been elevated beyond all reason into an event of cataclysmic proportions. The reality is that the Petitioner was angered by the institution of proceedings. She might at first have been frightened that she would lose control of the children but any such fear vanished long ago.
6. Her growing antipathy towards the Respondent has been projected consciously or subconsciously upon the children with the result that each of them now asserts with vigour that he or she does not wish to see their father again. This distressing result has led the experts to conclude that it would be damaging for the children but in particular for the child S if any form of supervised direct contact were to be enforced.
7. We have heard evidence from Ms Christine Tizzard, a Chartered Psychologist, who has also furnished a comprehensive and very helpful report. Ms Tizzard concluded that it would be detrimental to the interests of S to be compelled against his wishes to engage in even supervised contact with his father and that it could cause him great anxiety and stress. Ms Tizzard acknowledged that S's fears of his father were probably misconceived and she recommended that S should under go a psychological assessment to try to understand the basis of those fears.
8. We have given anxious consideration to this recommendation, but we have concluded on balance that it would not be a productive process while his mother, the Petitioner is not motivated towards encouraging contact between the Respondent and the children.
9. We described this as a melancholy case. The expert advice is that the father poses no risk whatever to S, that he has the ability to have safe and appropriate contact with him and that he has endeavoured to maintain indirect contact through the regular writing of letters and cards when no reciprocal contact has been made.
10. Ms Tizzard states in her report that children tend to develop psychologically robust personalities following the divorce of their parents when they can develop relationships with both mother and father. Dr Glaun the Consultant Clinical Psychologist who reported on this family in 2005 stated:
"Long term ill effects of divorce are reduced if children remain in contact with both parents after a separation or divorce. There is much evidence to show that children identify with the humiliation, anger and worry felt by the custodial parent, if this is displayed to them. The alignment of the child with one parent in the form of a vigorous attack on the other parent is likely to prolong the child's suffering and make them psychologically vulnerable. The longer such unhealthy alliances continue, the greater the child's vulnerability to psychological instability in the long term. The best interests of the child are served when everything possible is done to help the child have a meaningful relationship with both parents."
11. Against all that compelling evidence of the desirability of contact between S and his father stands an irrational, but nonetheless, very real conviction on the part of the child, that the Respondent is a nasty and frightening man. It is not necessarily the case that the Petitioner has consciously fostered this false image. It is more likely that she has allowed it to develop through the children becoming aware of her own anxieties and anger.
12. It is possible that the English proceedings on financial matters, which we understand have surprisingly not yet been concluded, have had an adverse effect upon the relationship between the parties. What is clear, however, in our judgment, is that only the Petitioner can bring an end to this very sad state of affairs in relation to the children. Only she has the key to unlock the cage in which they are at present imprisoned. If she could bring herself as a first stage to reinstate some form of civilised communication with the Respondent that would be a very important first step in persuading the children that their father was not beyond the pale. We can only express the hope that in time she will find it possible to do so.
13. In the meantime we record that the Respondent has very properly taken the view that it is not in S's best interests that he should press his application for supervised direct contact at this stage.
14. He, the Respondent, has made it clear through his counsel that he will be there and ready to resume his rôle as a father when either or both of the children wish to resume contact with him. We note that the Respondent has accepted the advice of Ms Tizzard that he should continue to write to the children although he will now do so once a month rather than twice. To that extent paragraph 3 (a) of the agreement embodied in the order of 20th January, 2006, will need to be modified.
15. The Respondent regards this decision of the Court, which effectively brings an end to the proceedings in Jersey, as sufficiently important to request that his next letter should be read to the children by an officer of the Children's Department or the Court Welfare Officer. The letter must, of course, be appropriate but subject to that proviso we so order.
16. Miss Fitz submitted that the Court might make more specific orders in relation to the Petitioner's obligation to provide full information to the father about the children's development. The difficulty with that submission is that if we are too specific we will go beyond what is ordinarily understood as the dividing line between shared parental responsibility and the day-to-day functions of the parent having the care of the children.
17. We understand why counsel should have made the submission but we prefer to leave in place the existing obligation of the Petitioner, who will we trust, now have a very clear understanding of what it means, and the consequences of failing to comply with it. There will remain, therefore, the obligation of the petitioner under clause 6
"To encourage contact with the Respondent as it develops".
18. We hope that contact may develop more quickly than seems possible at present. We also hope that the Petitioner will not take the view that she has "won", a wish she had expressed to Dr Glaun in 2005, so that there would be no access. In truth there are only losers in this outcome and the principal losers are the children.
19. The application of the Respondent is formally dismissed. Finally may I express the gratitude of the Court to both counsel for their extremely helpful submissions.
(There followed a discussion on costs)
20. Subject to any further submissions which may be made as to enforcement, I order the Petitioner to pay the costs of the Respondent on an indemnity basis. The costs award is not to be executed for a period of four weeks so as to enable Mrs Colley to make a representation to the Court, if thought fit, having taken further instructions on the ability of the Petitioner to pay.
No Authorities