Content warning* - please note there is distressing content in this press release.
Nine fathers were given legal access by private family court law proceedings (PLP) to the children they were accused of sexually abusing, according to a qualitative study.
The groundbreaking UKRI funded paper, published in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, was carried out by University of Manchester researchers in partnership with members of SHERA Research Group and The Survivor Family Network.
It is based on the experience of 45 women from across England in PLP who along with some of their children accused the men of abuse, including child sexual abuse (CSA) in nine cases.
A tenth father, a convicted paedophile, had groomed the mother as a child and been convicted of child sex offences but hadn't yet harmed the child sexually. Other fathers convicted of child sex offences were also given direct access to their children.
Of the 45 studied, fathers were given access in 43 cases.
PLP cases occur when two or more private individuals try to resolve a dispute, usually around child arrangements or financial disputes.
All ten cases involving CSA resulted in some form of direct child contact with the alleged perpetrator father, sometimes giving unsupervised overnight stays or 50% shared residency.
Some of the 10 fathers were either convicted child sex offenders or had admitted to CSA. In some of the cases digital evidence was submitted to the court.
Only fathers who had criminal convictions for CSA were considered to meet the threshold for concern for risk or harm, though they were still given overnight contact with the children, supervised by paternal family members.
Four of the mothers, accused of coaching their child to falsify abuse claims - so called parental alienation - lost residency of their children to the alleged perpetrator father.
The researchers applied a feminist-informed framework to understand the experience of 10 women from within the larger sample of 45, who were also interviewed.
The analysis identified 5 themes:
- Minimisation by the courts of the harm to the child and mother from CSA by the father, overemphasising the rights of fathers.
- The courts rely on whether a father was 'gratified' by the abuse to determine whether harm has occurred and a 'sorry' from the father was enough to reassure the court that their children will now be safe from future harm.
- The family courts at times intervened to close down active CSA criminal investigations into the fathers.
- Mothers who persisted in their attempts to resist the court and advocate for their children were those who lost their children.
- The court actors were frequently reported as bound by a pro-father narrative in their regard to each other.
Lead author Dr Elizabeth Dalgarno said: "We found disturbing evidence that private family courts are letting down some mothers and their children who accuse the fathers of child sex abuse and or rape.
"Many of the fathers had a history of abusing others. All had allegedly abused the mothers and children, yet this was deemed 'alienation', 'historic' or 'irrelevant' by the court, with one child repeatedly raped for several years after her mother was erroneously dubbed an 'alienator'.
"Fathers' actions and behaviours were repeatedly minimised and made invisible if harmful. For mothers, there was no such grace shown in the court, who sometimes had their children removed."
The researchers argue CSA findings should not be determined within existing PLP, where prevailing bias against mothers and children leaves room for abuse to continue.
Use of 'parental alienation' or 'alienating behaviours' as a defence, they say, should be prohibited and that the Sexual Offences Act 2003 must re-consider the notion of perpetrator gratification to define harm and also review the use of a child's personal and private space in defining criminality.
She added: "False allegations of CSA are extremely rare at around 0.01%- 2% and there is little evidence that children can be coerced into making false CSA claims.
"So we contend that this treatment of vulnerable women and their children is effectively an act of state sanctioned abuse, and state gaslighting."
Support resources available:
- Rape Crisis England & Wales
- Resource Centre- SHERA Research Group - Leading Innovative Research into the Health Impacts of Domestic Abuse on Women and Children (shera-research.com)
- Never OK: How to report sexual harassment or violence and the support available | StaffNet | The University of Manchester
The paper has been double blind peer reviewed and has been published in the journal of social welfare and family law. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law | Taylor & Francis Online (tandfonline.com) [tandfonline.com]
The DOI of the paper, called 'Let's excuse abusive men from abusing and enable sexual abuse': Child Sexual Abuse Investigations in England's Private Family Courts' is: 10.1080/09649069.2024.2382501. and it is published in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law here
Anonymous quotes from some of the mothers:
"'…there'd been sexual videos made of my son. My son had come home with bruises. My son had specifically said he didn't want to go to his dad's. [son] disclosed a lot of things… but because [father] said, "I'm sorry…we were only messing around and there wasn't actually any penetration", he got away with it… And I've got to live with those videos in my head and they even upset the police officers… There was no empathy [from the family court]. There was nothing… Just "fathers have rights", very, very, pro, pro, pro father'"
'[police] didn't really do anything, they kind of left it up to social care…the social worker came and said, "we'll come and make sure you've got food in the fridge and a roof over your head", saw [son]…then they went and saw him…with his father and wrote a report and said there was nothing wrong… she completely and utterly blamed me, said I "was emotionally abusing [son]"…by this time, we'd had one [family] court case [with] a district judge [who] said "social care couldn't find any issues", and awarded my ex overnight contact every other weekend and holidays'
'But this same social worker went out again, and again, and just had a word, all the time, while pushing it as parental alienation. Because I was "making [child] over-anxious". And because [father] said "it was accidental", and social services actually said that "they would not consider it as sexual abuse because they didn't believe it was sexually gratifying for him'
'So, my ex-husband had the biggest collection of pornography that I had ever seen, and a lot of the titles were 'Teen', and he had used sex as a controlling mechanism within the relationship… This was mentioned…in court, and it was as if I was just being vindictive and trying to find something else wrong with him, to pin something else on him [and] there clearly "wasn't a problem"'.
My children had accused their father of sexual abuse and he came back with parental alienation after a number of years of not mentioning it…they're not allowed to use any form of disclosing tool or not allowed to buy them any diaries…I've been told if I report further allegations then basically my ex has got a fast-track back to court for immediate change of residence…so they threatened me and gagged the girls effectively.'
'Even the psychologist said, "there is no parental alienation". He wrote it specifically and he contradicted Cafcass, he overruled Cafcass, and guess who the judge went with? Cafcass'
