The impact on children and mothers
After her parents separated, Mary spent years splitting her time between her mother and father, living with each parent on alternate weeks. Beth said she and her daughter were close during that time, and that Mary would express reservations about her father, describing him as “mean”.
But when Mary was 12, she started to be severely bullied by her classmates. It was decided she should move to a new school closer to her father and live with him during the week, returning to Beth at weekends.
It was not an easy decision for Beth. The history of violence weighed on her mind. But as is common for abuse victims/survivors, she hoped her ex had turned over a new leaf.
Mary’s attitude towards her mother dramatically changed once she was under her father's care. She started to see Beth as the “mean” parent, and during one vicious row referred to her mother as a “fucking psycho” – language, Beth said, that her ex had used against her.
As their relationship deteriorated, a family court ruled that Mary should be able to decide when she sees her mother, and the two have had no contact for several years. The mental health impact on Beth has been so severe that she is now in domestic abuse-induced suicide support.
During her fight to regain access to and protect her now-teenage daughter, Beth has repeatedly turned to local authorities for help. On one occasion, she contacted her local council with concerns that Mary may be suicidal. This led to an assessment by social services, which Beth has shared with openDemocracy. While the report did not find evidence that Mary was suicidal, it quoted a family member who described her as “suffering with panic attack and anxiety”, “always sad” and “quite isolated from the family”.
It is not unusual for children who have witnessed and therefore been subject to domestic abuse to suffer from poor mental health; half of the patients seen by the Children and Adolescents Mental Health Service, an NHS service that provides support and treatment for young people, report experiencing domestic abuse.
The same social services’ assessment, which Beth obtained via a Subject Access Request, stated: “We do feel [Beth] has been a victim of abuse”. Despite this acknowledgement, social services did not support Beth’s efforts to remove Mary from her father’s care. Instead, they expressed concerns about Beth’s behaviour, as she had attempted to meet her daughter despite Mary saying she did not want contact with her mother.
Beth then reported her ex to the police, with officers commissioning a leading academic specialising in coercive control to review Mary’s case. The academic’s report, which openDemocracy has seen, suggested that Mary’s sudden change in behaviour towards both her mother and father “strongly suggests that the child’s perspective is being distorted by the domestically abusive parent as part of the abusive parent’s coercive control”.
Ultimately, the police did not take Beth’s case forward. This, she says, fails to follow statutory guidance on coercive control regarding “weaponising children in family courts proceedings, financial abuse through legal proceedings and making false reports to professionals”. This was disputed by a spokesperson for the local police service, which we are not naming to protect Mary’s identity, although they said they could not comment on individual cases.
While all this was taking place, Beth was also continuing to fight her case in the family courts. She hoped a judge would see what she says all the other services were missing: that she and her daughter were being coercively controlled.
Family courts and child safety
The family courts system in England and Wales has faced much criticism in recent years for putting children in danger by failing to take account of domestic abuse.
Since a ‘presumption of contact’ was enshrined into law in 2014, “judges and professionals [in family courts] strongly promote and prioritise contact between children and non-resident parents following parental separation, even in cases involving domestic abuse”, according to a 2024 report by Right To Equality, a non-profit organisation focused on achieving gender equality through legal reform in the UK.
Evidence suggests this pro-contact principle is “rarely disapplied”, Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner, wrote in a report last year, adding: “Domestic abuse allegations, and impact on the child being required to have contact with an abusive parent, sometimes against their will, were not sufficiently taken into account.”
In the same report, Jacobs warned that perpetrators are weaponising the courts to commit ‘post-separation abuse’ against their children and ex-partners. She also expressed concern that the adversarial nature of the family courts process can leave women afraid to disclose domestic abuse in case they are accused of ‘parental alienation’ – a claim that they are using malicious allegations to estrange the child from a parent. This failure to alert judges to previous abuse puts children at risk.
“I have heard of women warned by their solicitor not to raise domestic abuse in the family courts,” Jacobs told openDemocracy. “My great frustration is that, from the point that you've been accused as someone who's trying to alienate your child, any concern you have will be met with the answer ‘well that's because you're trying to alienate your child.’ It gives you absolutely no ability to raise a concern, and we would expect parents to raise a concern about their child’s safety.”
Beth said her ex used similar tactics in the family courts as part of a pattern of his alleged coercively controlling behaviour. During the court process, she said he omitted evidence about his history of domestic abuse and instead made false allegations against her, including that her house was unsuitable, and that she was abusive towards Mary – allegations she denies and for which he produced no evidence. Beth has now spent £65,000 on family court costs, in unsuccessful attempts to protect her daughter.
Telling openDemocracy of her frustration at what she views as a failure by the family courts, local authorities and the police to deal with her allegations of coercive control, Beth said: “No services are working to protect victims unless there is physical violence.”
Children are also reporting suffering in the family courts system. Last year, Jacobs instigated ‘Tell Nicole’ sessions, where children and young people aged between four and 24 could share with her their experiences of domestic abuse and their support needs.
During the discussions, “children brought up the family courts, unprompted by us,” said Jacobs. “They asked for improved understanding from the family courts, because the arrangements made by the courts were not always safe for them.
“Victims are very much beholden to a family courts system where the domestic abuse may be completely minimised. Domestic abuse is often characterised as in the past, with the court not thinking at all about the child and the impact on a child.”
*Names have been changed
