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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges) >> M v F [2024] EWFC 82 (B) (21 March 2024) URL: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/OJ/2024/82.html Cite as: [2024] EWFC 82 (B), [2024] EWFC 82 |
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This judgment was
delivered
in private. The judge has given leave
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 the judgment the anonymity of the
children
and members of their
family
must be strictly preserved. All persons, including representatives of the media, must ensure that this
condition
is strictly
complied
with.
Failure
to
do
so
will
be a
contempt
of
court.
Neutral Citation
Number: [2024] EWFC 82 (B)
Case
No. PR23P00721
Courtroom
No. 2
64 Victoria Street
Blackburn
BB1 6DJ
Thursday, 21st March 2024
Before:
HIS HONOUR JUDGE BOOTH
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
B E T W
E E N:
M
and
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Transcript of a recording by Acolad UK Ltd
291-299 Borough High Street, London SE1 1JG
Tel: 020 7269 0370
legal@ubiqus.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MR GULLIVER appeared on behalf of the Applicant mother
MS LAU appeared on behalf of the Respondent father
MS WILKINSON
appeared on behalf of the
Children's
Guardian
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
JUDGMENT APPROVED
HHJ BOOTH:
1. This is my judgment in private law proceedings between the parents of A, a little girl born on 10 May 2019. The mother has been represented by Mr Gulliver of counsel,
the
father
represented by Ms Lau of
counsel
and A, through her
Children's
Guardian, Ms Holt, has been represented by Ms
Wilkinson
of
counsel.
I am grateful to all of them
for
the
way
in
which
this
case
has been sensibly
conducted
and
for
their extremely helpful
written
closing
submissions to me. I invited them to prepare an agreed
chronology
and that
document
has proved very helpful.
2. A's mother asserts that A is the victim of sustained sexual abuse and physical abuse by her father,
which
has taken place
during
the time
when
her
father
has had
contact
to A. A's
father
denies
that there has been any such abuse and asserts that A has been
coached
into saying things against him and
describing
things that have never happened.
3. Ms Wilkinson,
on behalf of A, put the matter this
way:
"The nature of the counter-allegations
made by the parents mean that on either parents'
case,
A has suffered sexual and emotional harm. If
father
has abused A in the
way
alleged, there has been significant sexual, emotional, and physical harm. If he has not, given the repeated sexually explicit matters A has referred to, A must have been
coached
into thinking/saying these things happened to her. The only person
who
could
have
done
this is Mother. Given A's age, the
coaching
will
have been
deliberate
and sustained and A has suffered significant emotional and sexual harm as a result. A has also had unnecessary medical examinations by the GP and unnecessary professional involvement
from
the Local Authority and [Therapeutic Services]".
4. I have a substantial body of written
material, including statements
from
A's parents and the
witnesses
I heard
from.
I have a substantial body of police evidence and A's medical records and other relevant
documents.
I heard oral evidence
from
A's mother, her
father,
the
family
support
worker
allocated to A, the health visitor, and
from
A's maternal aunt.
The law
5. Let me set out the law. The law in relation to findings
of
fact
in relation to sexual abuse has been
comprehensively
analysed by MacDonald J in Re P (Sexual Abuse:
Findings
of
Fact
Hearings) [2019] EWFC 27 and as subsequently approved by the
Court
of Appeal. Some of the points I need to
consider
can
be
dealt
with
shortly.
(a) The burden of proving the allegations they make lies with
the party making the allegation.
(b) The standard of proof is the simple balance of probabilities. What
is more likely than not to have happened.
(c)
style='
font:7.0pt
"Times New Roman"'> The
Court
must
consider
the inherent probabilities of an event occurring or not.
(d)
style='
font:7.0pt
"Times New Roman"'>
Findings
of
fact
must be based on evidence and inferences that
can
properly be
drawn
from
the evidence, but not on speculation.
(e) The Court
must look at the broad
canvas
of the evidence and put each part of the evidence in the
context
of all of the rest of the evidence.
(f)
style='
font:7.0pt
"Times New Roman"'> The evidence of those
who
were
there
when
the events in question occurred is of the utmost importance and the
Court
should
form
a
clear
view of their
credibility
and reliability.
(g) There is no burden on those who
were
there to
come
up
with
an explanation and the absence of an explanation
does
not necessarily mean that the real explanation must be sinister.
(h) When
lies are told
during
an investigation and to the
Court,
the
Court
must give itself a R v Lucas [1981] QB 720
direction,
remembering that lies are told
for
all sorts of reasons and the
fact
that a
witness
has lied about one thing
does
not mean they have necessarily lied about everything. This aspect of the law
was
comprehensively
considered
by McFarlane LJ in Re H-
C
(
Children)
[2016] EWCA
Civ
136 onwards.
6. I have reminded myself of passages at the beginning of his judgment where
McDonald J set out some of the
difficulties
that
frequently
confront
the
Court:
"5. Where
sexual abuse has occurred, it is not
commonly
witnessed
by an independent third party. Beyond issues of social stigma, perpetrating adults are often reluctant to make admissions in the
context
of
family
proceedings in
circumstances
where
they
face,
or may
face,
criminal
prosecution. The alleged victims of sexual abuse are often vulnerable
children
with
other
difficulties
that
can
affect the
credibility
of their allegations,
which
allegations often emerge a
considerable
time after the alleged abuse has taken place, and therefore long after any physical evidence that may have existed has
disappeared.
The allegations may emerge in a piecemeal
fashion,
with
children
often not reporting events in a linear history, reporting them in a partial
way
and revisiting topics more than once. Such
children
may,
whether
by reason of their age, or the impact of the alleged sexual abuse or other
difficulties,
be idiosyncratic, inconsistent, or unreliable historians. The age, psychological state and/or views of the
child
may mean ... that the
court
does
not hear their accounts
challenged
forensically
in
cross
examination and, accordingly, is
deprived
of one of the key
forensic
tools
for
testing the truth of a
disputed
account before the law. The
child
may suffer
from
psychological sequalae that may or may not be the product of sexual abuse but
which,
in any event, makes the assessment of their reliability even more
difficult.
It is not unknown
for
children
to lie about having experienced sexual abuse or to
fabricate
allegations of the same.
6. More generally, human memory is not a single, simple system. What
is remembered of an experience by a
child
or young person
will
not be a
complete
picture akin to a photograph or
CCTV
recording and
will
vary
depending
on the age at
which
the experience took place.
What
an adult may
consider
to be a key element of a remembered experience, and therefore key to assessing the reliability of the memory, may not be significant
from
a
child's
perspective. The physiological processes involved in the encoding, storage and retrieval of memories are susceptible to internal and external influences.
Within
this
context,
children's
accounts
can
be affected by their level of
functioning,
their emotional state and their levels of suggestibility. It is also possible
for
a
child
to 'remember' an event that has not in
fact
occurred, or
which
has not occurred precisely in the
way
remembered. The
child's
recollection of past experiences
can
be influenced by the process of questioning the
child ...
7. This means that, within
the
context
of other already
considerable
forensic
challenges,
and of particular significance in this
case
for
reasons that
will
become apparent, the ill-
considered
reaction of
well-meaning
adults to
children
making allegations of sexual abuse, or a
failure
by professionals to apply rigorously long-established guidance and good practice in
dealing
with
such allegations,
can
have a
deleterious,
and sometimes
fatal
impact on the reliability of the allegations
when
they
come
to be
considered
by the
court.
In
cases
of alleged sexual abuse, there is a significant
forensic
tension between the need to provide understanding, support and
care
for
children
who
may have been sexually abused,
where
the presence of a supportive non-abusing adult
who
listens
without
judgment and takes seriously
what
the
child
is saying is essential to that
child's
current
and
future
wellbeing,
and the requirements of the legal process
for
establishing the truth or otherwise of those allegations in a
court
of law. That
difficult
forensic
tension
falls
to be addressed in this jurisdiction by the
careful,
rigorous, and
diligent
application of
comprehensive
statutory guidance and good practice principles born out of long experience. The gravity of the
consequences
of a
failure
to apply
with
rigor these
clear
and long-established principles
when
dealing
with
allegations of sexual abuse
was
set out
with
pellucid
clarity
by
Wall
J (as he then
was)
in B v B (
Child
Abuse:
Contact) [1994]
2
F.L.R.
713, in
which
he observed that:
'... by muddying the waters,
it
frequently
renders impossible the task of the
court
in
deciding
whether
or not there has been abuse. Thus, it may not be possible to make a
finding
against an alleged perpetrator
who
is in truth guilty'.
8. Finally,
the possibility of much easier access to pornographic material on social media and the Internet means that
concepts
such as age-appropriate sexual knowledge, and
conclusions
as to the source of
detailed
knowledge of specific sexual acts must be treated
with
far
greater
care
than in the past. Medical evidence in
cases
of alleged
child
sexual abuse is rarely
definitive
and very often non‑specific, ambiguous, equivocal or, on occasion,
controversial.
Within
this
context,
experienced medical professionals and experts in the
field
may reasonably reach
different
conclusions
on a given physical presentation. Research and practice as between jurisdictions may
differ
in this regard.
9. The consequences
of the
court
reaching the
wrong
conclusion
in respect of an allegation of
child
sexual abuse include a
child
being returned to a position of
danger
or,
conversely,
a
child
being
deprived
of a
family
that is, in
fact,
perfectly safe. In the
circumstances,
when
determining
whether
sexual abuse has taken place and, if so,
who
is responsible
for
perpetrating that abuse, it is vital that the
court
remain acutely
conscious
of the
forensic
difficulties
outlined above. As Holman J observed in Leeds
City
Council
v YX & ZX (Assessment of Sexual Abuse) [2008] EWHC 802 (
Fam)
the task of the
court
in
cases
of this nature is not so much akin to putting together a single jigsaw puzzle in
which
all the pieces are present, but rather:
'If the jigsaw metaphor is helpful at all, then, in my view, it is important to think of a pile of jigsaw pieces in which
pieces
from
more than one jigsaw have been muddled up. There may be pieces
which,
on examination,
do
not
fit
the jigsaw under
construction
at all, but
which
require to be
discarded
or placed on one side'".
Mr Gulliver provided me with
a summary of relevant legal principles
which
I have taken into account in my overall assessment of the
case.
7. In this case
central
to my assessment of the evidence is my assessment of the
witnesses,
particularly the parents. I place little reliance on how a
witness
performs in giving evidence in
Court.
MacDonald J in Re P sets out the judicial experience of the reliability of oral evidence, the ability of
witnesses
to
convince
themselves of the truth of things that
cannot
have happened, and
for
memory to be manipulated often unconsciously. The process of giving statements and preparing
for
Court
can
affect
what
is "remembered".
The Mother's Case
8. The mother's case
can
be summarised this
way:
she says she has,
for
a long time, been suspicious that A has been sexually abused by her
father.
The parents had a
difficult
relationship. They separated and reconciled,
with
the mother
finally
leaving the home
with
A in March 2020. They made
cross-applications
made to the
court
but reconciled in October 2020
when
both sought to
withdraw
or have
dismissed
their various proceedings.
9. In May 2022, Mother again left the family
home, taking A
with
her. Mother reported to the police that A had, by her actions and
words,
(bearing in mind she
was
only just three years of age), indicated that her
father
had stroked and touched her in such a
way
that she
felt
scared. Mother said that that
was
A indicating sexual abuse.
10. The matter came
before the
Court
in June 2020,
when
Father
issued an application
for
a
child
arrangements order.
Cafcass
became involved.
Cafcass
reported in a section 7 report that Mother
was
considering
withdrawing
the allegations she had made against the
father,
saying that "she had got it
wrong"
about
what
A had said about her
father.
She later
changed
that position,
continuing
to raise
concerns
about risk of sexual harm.
11. In December 2022,
the
Court
declined
to order a
finding
of
fact
hearing and
contact
was
instated
for
Father,
initially supported by Mother
with
Mother present, then proceeding unsupervised.
12. By May 2023, the Court
had before it a
final
section 7 report
from
Cafcass,
recommending that
contact
should proceed to overnight
contact.
The
first
overnight
contact
took place on 20 May 2023 and the second on 27 May 2023.
13. On 29 May, Mother says that A told her that she did
not
want
to see her
father
again. On 30 May, the parties spoke on the telephone. There is a
dispute
as to precisely
what
was
said.
14. On 31 May an unsuccessful handover took place and again there is a dispute
as to precisely
what
happened.
15. The mother says it was
shortly after that, on 2 June, that A started to make the
first
of her allegations of sexual abuse by her
father.
Mother says that A told her that
whilst
they
were
in the
car,
that
daddy
had touched her on top of her vagina. A
did
that by a mixture of
words
and gestures. According to Mother, A
went
on to say that her
father
had been licking her in her tiny hole. Mother says that later A gave more
details
of the licking,
concluding
with
describing
her
father
making her stand on the bed and licking her in her private parts. Mother
decided
at that point that
contact
should be suspended.
16. Mother reported an allegation of sexual abuse to the police on 5 June and that same day
had an appointment
with
her general practitioner, raising
concerns
that the
father
had abused A
during
overnight visits. That evening, Mother says A made more allegations against her
father.
17. On 6 June, A was
spoken to by a police
constable.
A
did
not repeat any of the allegations that she had apparently made to her mother, and
was
described
as very shy, hiding behind her mum.
18. On 7 June, Mother gave a statement to the police and later that day
spoke to somebody
from
the Local Authority. Again, that same
day,
Mother spoke to her general practitioner saying she
was
concerned
about the lack of "evidence" and
wanted
to bring A into the
doctor
so that A
could
open up the
discussion
about
Dad
and
what
he had
done,
so that she may say something that
could
be
documented.
The GP refused.
19. The following
day,
the Local Authority allocated a
family
support
worker
to
work
with
A and on that
day,
8 June, Mother began a process of making short video recordings of A
describing
things that she said had happened to her that
certainly
could
have amounted to physical and sexual abuse.
20. An initial visit was
undertaken by the
family
support
worker
on 14 June, but A
was
asleep. That same
day,
Mother issued an application to suspend the
child
arrangements order that provided
for
contact
with
A's
father.
21. On 17 June, Mother took A to a restaurant. She went
with
her sister and her sister's two
children,
aged 17 and 13. It is said by Mother and her sister that, spontaneously, A began to talk about things her
daddy
had
done
to her, including poking her in the eye and punching her.
22. A court
hearing took place on 20 June 2023, at
which
contact
was
suspended. There then began a series of visits by the
family
support
worker.
I
will
deal
with
her evidence in more
detail
in
due
course.
23. On 23 June, A was
with
her mother at Mother's sister's house
when
amongst other things A is said to have said, spontaneously, to her aunt, "
Daddy
put his
finger
inside me" pointing to her private parts.
24. On 26 June, an event took place that the mother asserts is highly significant. The police conducted
a PIPPA interview
with
A.
What
is a PIPPA interview? Police
Constable Halliday,
who
carried
out this exercise,
describes
it as
follows:
"I have been trained to conduct
ABE [Achieving Best Evidence] video-recorded interviews
for
witnesses
considered
to be vulnerable and/or intimidated.
For
witnesses
considered
to be vulnerable, I have also received training to
conduct
a Pre-Interview Planning and Preparation Assessment (PIPPA),
which
is intended to assist in building rapport
with
the
witness,
whilst
also gaining an understanding of any
communication
barriers or
considerations
and introducing the interview process and expectations (ground rules).
Within
the PIPPA process, I use neutral
conversational
topics and tasks, unrelated to the offence under investigation, to explore the
witnesses
understanding of vocabulary and
concepts
as
well
as provide an opportunity to visit the suite in
which
the interview
will
take place, to set the
witness
at ease and
familiarise
them
with
the setting".
25. I have a transcript and a recording of the interview. It took place shortly before two o'clock
in the afternoon and lasted
for
36 minutes. Police
Constable Halliday
went
significantly beyond the remit she has
described
in her statement that I have just quoted. She
went
on to
discuss
body parts
with
A, asking her "
where
weewee
comes
from"
and "
what's
that
called?"
When
the topic
was
raised, A is recorded as saying that "
daddy
put the hands
where
the
weewee
came
out". She goes on to say that she told her
daddy
to stop it, she then goes on to
describe
a scene in the bathroom involving her and her
father
with
A locking the
door,
going on to
describe
going
for
food
and
fighting
- at the very least a mixture of potential
fact,
but
certainly
containing
a lot of
fantasy.
26. After that interview, Mother says that A started doing
drawings
and talking about her
father.
She says she talked about her
father
with
no pants or knickers on and
described
him pushing her head to his
front
bum
with
A saying she
was
scared and hated it. Mother says that A told her that her
father
had said not to tell mummy
what
daddy
does,
and again repeated that her
father
made her stand on the bed
while
he licked her privates.
27. During
the next
couple
of
days,
the mother made a series of video recordings showing A saying various things, said by Mother to represent the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her
father.
28. It was
not until 1 September 2023 that the Achieving Best Evidence interview
was
conducted.
The purpose of the Achieving Best Evidence interview is to provide the
Court
with
the earliest possible opportunity to hear
directly
from
the
child,
with
the
child
being given an opportunity to give their account of
what
may have happened to them
with
no leading questions and
where
they are able to give a
free
narrative account.
Where
MacDonald J
was
talking about the "
careful,
rigorous and
diligent
application of
comprehensive
statutory guidance and good practice principles, borne out of long experience", this is the process he
was
referencing.
29. Given the assessment of the police of A's vulnerability, she was
provided
with
the services of an appropriately trained intermediary
for
this interview. It is of note, that A said nothing about any abuse by her
father,
despite
being asked questions that
clearly
raised the subjects that had
come
up
during
the PIPPA.
30. On 12 September, A was
taken to her GP by her mother. Mother
was
said to be
concerned
on A's behalf about abdominal pain and vulval symptoms. A
was
examined by the GP, and her external genitalia
was
examined. No abnormality
was
detected.
No urine sample
was
suggested by the GP and no
further
testing
directed.
A
was
noted to be a pleasant, happy little girl.
31. It is Mother's case
that
when
I
draw
all that evidence together, the only
conclusion
I
could
possibly
come
to is that A has been the victim of physical and sexual abuse, perpetrated by her
father.
In her evidence, Mother
went
further
and said that she is now
convinced
that her
first
concerns
back in 2022 of abuse
were
correct
and that her
father
has been abusing A every time he has had the opportunity
whenever
A has visited him
for
contact.
32. I heard from
the health visitor. Her evidence took the matter nowhere.
33. I heard from
the
family
support
worker.
Unfortunately, the near
contemporaneous
records that she had made of her interactions
with
Mother and A had not been viewed by her ahead of her either making her statement
within
these proceedings, or before she gave her evidence and
were
only produced by the Local Authority at the end of
day
three of the hearing after she had given her evidence. She
was
able to
describe
things that A had said to her,
which
supported
what
Mother said of some of the things that A had earlier said to her. However,
what
was
clear
from
her evidence
was
that A made allegations against her
father
only
when
her mother
was
present. On one such occasion, going to her mother and
whispering
before speaking of things she said had been
done
by her
father.
The Aunt's Evidence
The Aunt's evidence was
very unsatisfactory. She
described
a spontaneous
comment,
said to have been made by A,
when
A
was
sitting between her and A's mother, and opposite her two teenage
children.
Despite
A apparently saying that she had been poked in the eye by her
father,
there
were
no
follow-up
questions to A's mother as to
what
A's mother had
done
about this,
was
proposing to
do
about this, and it
was
suggested that her own teenage
children
were
entirely oblivious to anything A
was
saying.
34. Similarly, the spontaneous comments
made by A
when
she
was
at her aunt's home had no
follow-up,
no questions nor any suggestion
from
the aunt that this
was
something she should pursue
with
social services or the police if Mother
was
doing
nothing.
35. What
I saw
was
a
witness
giving evidence on behalf of her sister and giving me evidence that
was
highly unlikely to be truthful.
36. The Father
asserts that there has not been and has never been, any abuse of his
daughter
and that the time that they have spent together has been happy and precious
for
him.
37. He can
only
conclude
that A has been
coached
in some
way
by her mother to say things about him that are not true.
38. He described
the relationship
with
A's mother. There are plainly times, on his account,
where
they
can
communicate
in a
civil
and productive
fashion.
There are other occasions
when
communication
is not
civil,
and he
was
able to produce an example of abusive text messages
from
Mother,
where
she addressed him in the most reprehensible and offensive language. He had screenshots
from
3 May 2023
which
fit
that
description.
The significance of that
date
being the
day
after the
final
section 7 report
came
in, recommending that
contact
progress to overnight
contact.
The many messages, he said, that
were
in a similar vein, had been
deleted
by the mother.
39. Despite
everything that has happened, he maintains that A is
well
cared
for
by her mother and he merely
wishes
to re-establish
contact
with
his
daughter.
How do
I assess
what
Mother said
was
the evidence of A?
40. When
I look at the evidence of any
child
witness,
whether
that be in the recorded ABE interview, the PIPPA, or other statement, or recordings, I must keep in mind all the
following:
(i) Children
and especially young
children
are suggestible.
(ii) Memory is prone to error and easily influenced by the environment in which
recall is invited.
(iii) Memories can
be
confabulated
from
imagined experiences. It is possible to induce
false
memories and
children
can
speak sincerely and emotionally about events that
did
not in
fact
occur.
(iv) Allegations made by children
may emerge in a piecemeal
fashion
with
children
often not reporting events in a linear history, reporting them in a partial
way
and revisiting topics.
(v) The wider
circumstances
of the
child's
life may influence, explain, or
colour
what
the
child
is saying.
(vi) Factors
affecting
when
a
child
says something
will
include their
capacity
to understand their
world
and their role in it, requiring
caution
about interpreting
children's
references to behaviour or parts of the body through the prism of adult learning or reading.
(vii) Accounts given by children
are susceptible to influence by leading or otherwise suggestive questions, repetition, pressure, threats, negative stereotyping and encouragement, reward, or praise.
(viii) Accounts given by children
are susceptible to influence as the result of bias or preconceived ideas on the part of the interviewer.
(ix) Accounts given by children
are susceptible to
contamination
by the statements of others,
which
contamination
may influence a
child's
responses.
(x) Children
may embellish or overlay a general theme
with
apparently
convincing
detail
which
can
appear highly
credible
and be very
difficult
to
detect,
even
for
those
who
are experienced in
dealing
with
children.
(xi) Delay
between an event recounted and the allegation made
with
respect to that event may influence the accuracy of the account given.
(xii) Within
this
context,
the
way,
and the stage at
which
a
child
is interviewed
will
have a profound effect on the accuracy of the
child's
testimony.
What
is the Guardian's Position?
Ms Holt was
present in
Court
throughout the evidence. In
consultation
with
her legal team, she has taken the view that she should provide the
Court
with
the benefit of her assessment of the evidence she has heard.
41. She has concluded
that A has not been the victim of sexual abuse or physical abuse perpetrated by her
father.
Through Ms
Wilkinson
she makes these points:
a. At first
glance there appears to be ample evidence to support the
findings
that the mother seeks, including the PIPPA in
which
A makes allegations against her
father,
the short video recordings made by the mother of A making allegations of physical and sexual abuse against her
father,
and A repeating allegations of physical and sexual abuse to the Health Visitor, the
family
support
worker,
and her aunt.
b. However, the Guardian's analysis is that that evidence is either of little forensic
value or
clearly
flawed.
I have
dealt
with
the PIPPA interview already. In relation to the videos, the Guardian makes the point that they have no
context,
they are short, there is no understanding of
what
happens before them or after. Some of them stop
with
A in mid-sentence, A is
clearly
prompted in others and led, numerous times. A knows she is being recorded by her mother, and these are
clearly
not spontaneous interactions.
Despite
the explicit allegations in the videos, A
does
not seem upset, the mother
does
not appear emotional, both of
which
are sharply at odds
with
what
is being
discussed
in the videos.
c.
style='
font:7.0pt
"Times New Roman"'> The Health Visitor's evidence
was
of little value. She and Mother had
discussed
the allegations in A's presence. In addition, the Health Visitor said she had no training or understanding of how to take accounts
from
children
in these sorts of
circumstances.
d.
style='
font:7.0pt
"Times New Roman"'> The
family
support
worker
said that she
was
not there to gather evidence, but to support A and her mother. She too
was
not trained in Achieving Best Evidence principles and techniques, and it
was
clear
that A had been prepared
for
her interviews. Mother
was
present throughout, and I have
described
the incident of A
whispering
to her mother
with
her mother referring to A to
drawings
of
what
her
daddy
did
to her.
Analysis
42. Everything must be put into its context.
There is a long history in this
case
of parental separation and reconciliation and,
when
separated, allegations made by the mother against the
father.
43. At times the father
has made allegations against the mother but accepted in the
witness
box that he had behaved inappropriately to the mother by arguing
with
her.
44. Her messages to him speak for
themselves.
45. As recently as December 2022,
the mother
was
considering
a reconciliation
with
the
father,
although
was
vacillating.
46. Between December 2022
and May 2023, the
father
was
seeing A, and all the reports
were
that
contact
was
going
well.
47. It was
only
when
overnight
contact
was
ordered by the
Court
on 11 May 2023, at a
final
hearing, that things appeared to
change.
That order
was
made by
consent,
but it
was
with
a very reluctant
consent
from
Mother. She
did
not think it right
for
A to immediately start spending overnight time
with
her
father.
She said that she
was
advised that it
would
"test it out". After two overnight visits, A is then said not to
want
to go
with
Father
and there
was
a
failed
handover. That
was
followed
by Mother saying that A started to make allegations of sexual and physical abuse.
48. As she gave her evidence, Mother developed
that theme, suggesting that the abuse had been taking place throughout. However, it
was
only
when
the overnight
contact
was
stopped that A
was
able to
describe
what
had been happening to her.
49. I agree with
the Guardian's analysis, that it is more likely, set against that history and the evidence I have heard, that the mother manipulated A to make allegations to
coincide
with
the testing out of overnight
contact,
something she
did
not
want
to happen.
50. Mother says that there is no explanation and no case
put
forward
by the
father
as to how it is that she has
coached
or manipulated A to say things that Mother has used in evidence.
Where,
in the same
way
that a
child
is seldom seen being sexually abused, a
child
is being manipulated to make
what
are
false
allegations, it is hardly likely to be seen enduring that process by anybody else.
What
is known, is that the moment Mother stopped A's
contact
to her
father,
she effectively stopped A's
contact
with
the outside
world.
A stopped going to nursery. She spent all her time
with
her mother, and it is noteworthy that all the allegations that Mother relies on took place
with
her mother present.
51. The allegations relied on, took place within
a relatively short period of time. There has been no repeat. A said nothing at nursery. She has said nothing since starting at school. That may be because she has tried to put things behind her and/or she regards school and nursery as safe places. Alternatively, it may
well
be that she knows that there is no need
for
her to say anything more.
52. Insofar as I look at the evidence given by the parents, Father
gave his evidence is a
careful,
measured, and
controlled
way,
only becoming upset
when
taken to the allegations made against him by the mother in her messages.
53. Mother's evidence in court
became more
florid
as it progressed. She made new and extremely serious allegations against the
father
suggesting additional things said by A
for
the
first
time in the
witness
box, things that had not appeared in her
witness
statement to the police, her
witness
statements in the proceedings, or anywhere else. Mother's evidence of the abuse lacked any emotional empathy
for
A.
What
she showed
was
anger towards the
father.
54. I am satisfied on the evidence before me that A has not been abused by her father.
55. I am satisfied on the evidence before me that A has been manipulated or influenced by her mother to say things about her father
that her mother knew
were
not true and
were
designed
to prevent the
father
from
having a relationship
with
A and to hurt him.
56. Three things immediately arise:
a. One is how A is to be helped in the circumstances
I have
described.
b. Secondly, I have concerns
about Mother's psychological state. Although
Father
has no
concerns
about A's
care
with
her mother, I am afraid I
do.
c.
style='
font:7.0pt
"Times New Roman"'> Thirdly, Mother is a teacher. This judgment should be brought to the attention of those
with
responsibility
for
those in the teaching profession.
What
they
do
with
it, or make of it, is a matter
for
them, but it
would
be
wrong
of me not to ensure it is brought to their attention.
57. That is my judgment in the fact-finding
exercise. I
will
give
further
directions
on
welfare matters.
End of Judgment.