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Parental Alienation and Family Court

Continuing Domestic Abuse by Family Courts

By Clare ScanlanPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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I recently wrote to Nadhim Zahawi, Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families, to request that he bans the use of the unproven junk theory of Parental Alienation in Family Courts. PA is being used in Family Courts to ensure that abusive fathers are given contact and residency of their children and to allow them to continue to abuse the mothers.

Mr. Zahawi did not respond to my email, he simply passed it on to the Ministry of Justice. The response was shocking. It did not seek to reassure me that parental alienation was not being used, it did not seek to reassure me that domestic abuse was being ignored and abusive fathers were being enabled to continue abusing their ex-partners and children.

The person who responded to me started by stating that, “The family court has a range of powers to deal with cases where alienating behaviour features.” So she started by ignoring that I had said that PA was unproven and junk theory and there was no mention of domestic abuse. She just launched straight in on how the family court could deal with alienating behaviours! She did then go on to say that the courts are required by law to presume that the involvement of a parent in the life of the child is considered good for the child’s welfare, unless there is evidence to the contrary.

The statistic that one in four women will suffer from domestic abuse is well known. Women’s Aid stated in their “Safe not Sorry” document from 2016 that around 70-90 percent of private law cases involve allegations of domestic abuse. It is also known that around 65 percent of domestic abuse incidents are not reported. In family court, only 1% percent of parents are not allowed contact with their children (Macdonald 2013). So in family court, 90 percent of allegations of domestic abuse are said to be “not proven” or the abuse is minimised.

So why are family courts using parental alienation as the starting point for dealing with cases where children do not want to see a parent instead of the justified fear of a child who has been abused or seen their (usually) mother abused? Why is the Ministry of Justice promoting this contrary position?

The next paragraph went on to that the child’s wishes and feelings need to be ascertained where there is a dispute over child arrangements. However, as PA states that the children are being coached and alienated by the “alienating” parent, then their views are obviously going to be ignored and disbelieved in family court. The email continued by saying, “Where a previously made order is not working, the court can vary that order to protect a child in a situation where parental alienation is present.” So here we have the root of the problem. Either the child should be believed and agree that they have a justified reason for not wanting to see a parent who they believe is abusive or they are not believed as they have been “alienated” from a loving parent.

Then the email goes on to Cafcass’s “Private Law Assessment Pathway,” which provides guidance on “high conflict and alienating behaviours.” You may remember the headline from The Guardian from November 17, 2017 where parents were threatened with the losing their children if they try to alienate them from the other parent. The journalist, Amelia Hill, defined PA as a “phenomenon where one parent poisons their child against the other.” The Transparency Project suggests that a better definition would be that “the hostile attitude of one parent leads to a child having negative views of the other that are not a reflection of the child’s own experience, and results in unjustified rejection of that parent.”

Following this article, two letters in response were published in The Guardian (November 29, 2016. The first was from Emeritus Professor Jane Fortin. Professor Fortin’s research has shown that children (even very young ones) can have their own very valid reasons for not wanting contact with a parent.

The Transparency Project has received documentation from Cafcass that estimates that the actual prevalence of alienation in high conflict cases is only 2 percent and in all Cafcass cases was only 11-15 percent.

Finally I would like to point out that Richard Gardener’s Parental Alienation Theory has long been discredited and has been seen as a way of promoting paedophilia. The Presidential Task Force of the American Psychological Association on Violence stated that “there is no data to support the phenomenon called parental alienation syndrome, in which mothers are blamed for interfering with their children’s attachment to their fathers.” Many other well-respected organisations and academics have also refuted and stated that PAS is a “junk” theory with no merit.

When it is well known that PA is junk theory and that Domestic Abuse affects so many women and children, why is the Ministry of Justice, the Family Courts, and Cafcass (who are supposed to be the voice of the child) refusing to believe women and children in court and allowing abusive men to continue to abuse their children and the children’s mothers?

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About the Creator

Clare Scanlan

I am passionate about writing! Passionate about animals, especially horses, passionate about women's and children's rights!

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