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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges) >> A (Children : Parental alienation) [2019] EWFC B56 (24 September 2019) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/OJ/2019/B56.html Cite as: [2019] EWFC B56 |
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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 child and members of the 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.
IN THE FAMILY COURT CASE NO: XX17C01779
IN THE MATTER OF THE CHILDREN
ACT 1989
24th September 2019
Before HHJ Wildblood QC
Re
A (
Children)
(
Parental
alienation)
---------------------------------------------------
The names of counsel and solicitors are omitted for the purposes of anonymisation of this judgment.
---------------------------------------------------
HHJ Wildblood QC:
1. In a
recent
report
to the court, one of this country’s leading consultant child and
adolescent psychiatrists, Dr Mark Berelowitz, said this: ‘this is one of the
most disconcerting situations that I have encountered in 30 years of doing such
work.’ I have been involved in family law now for 40 years and my
experience of this case is the same as that of Dr Berelowitz. It is a case in
which a father leaves the proceedings with no contact with his
children
despite
years of litigation, extensive professional input, the initiation of public law
proceedings in a bid to support contact and many court orders. It is a case in
which I described the father as being ‘smart, thoughtful, fluent in language
and
receptive
to advice;’ he is an intelligent man who plainly loves his
children.
Although I have seen him deeply distressed in court because of things
that have occurred, I have never seen him venting his frustrations. It is also a
case in which the mother has deep and unresolved emotional needs, fixed ideas
and a tendency to be compulsive.
2. No
professional has suggested that there is anything about this father that renders
him unsuited to have contact with his
children;
there have been consistent
recommendations
throughout the eight-year history of these proceedings from a
wide spectrum of professionals that contact should take place between the
father and the
children.
All professionals involved in this case have concluded
that the mother has
alienated
the
children
from the father. In an exceptional
but accurate use of language Dr Berelowitz said this: ‘the mother has done
very much more than simply not promoting the
children’s
relationship
with their
father. Indeed, it is my impression that she has, at best, allowed the
demonisation of the father and, at worst, actively encouraged this demonisation
on the basis that it is right to do so… She is unable to perceive herself as
being an agent or a cause.’
3. In a previous judgment I said this:
‘I have no
doubt that the three experts are right to say that this mother has alienated
the
children
from their father. The
relationship
between this mother and these
children
is deeply enmeshed and their perception of this father is skewed and
dominated by the mother’s own emotional vulnerability. The mother has a deeply
entrenched set of beliefs which are not
receptive,
at present, to the
reasoning
of others. I find that she is aware of the consequences of her actions upon the
children’s
emotional welfare but considers that her actions are justified.’
4. Of
the children
it is said that they are generally polite, intelligent, compliant
and obedient. There are very positive
reports
about them from their schools. However,
in a demonstration of the misplaced empowerment of these
children
that is
associated with the mother’s
alienation,
I have
received
a communication from one
child
refusing
to have meetings with ‘any more social workers, therapists,
psychologists, psychiatrists, guardians, et cetera.’ The
children
refused
to
meet Dr Berelowitz or engage with the Guardian. They will have nothing to do
with their father or his family. They would not even acknowledge cards or
presents that he has sent. When he wrote entirely appropriate letters and cards
to them, the
children
expressed unjustified and illogical complaint about their
contents. They also express false memories of how he has behaved towards them
in the past.
5. Given
the truly exceptional nature of this case, I intend to release
this judgement
for publication subject to any contrary submissions that I might hear. The
judgement will therefore be heavily anonymized. Prior to
releasing
the
judgment, I gave three further judgments, in one of which I explained why I was
publishing this one; I do not intend to publish any of those three judgments
because there is nothing of public interest in them. I also delayed the
publication of this judgment to allow any party that wished to appeal this
decision (or the decision to publish) the opportunity to do so in accordance
with a timescale that I
reduced
under Rule 52.12 (2) (a) of The Civil Procedure
Rules 1998. No party has done so.
6. My
intention in releasing
this judgement for publication is not because I wish to
pretend to be in a position to give any guidance or speak with any authority;
that would be presumptuous, wrong and beyond my station. However, this is such
an exceptional case that I think it is in the public interest for the wider
community to see an example of how badly wrong things can go and how complex
cases are where one
parent
(here the mother)
alienates
children
from the other
parent.
It is also an example of how sensitive the issues are when an attempt
is made to transfer the living arrangements of
children
from a
residential
parent
(here, the mother) to the other
parent
(the father); the attempts to do
so in this case failed badly.
7. In
anonymising this case I will not refer
to the ages, sexes or any other
identifying features of the
children
beyond saying the
children
are the natural
children
of this mother and this father. I will
refer
to ‘
residence’
and
‘contact’ for the purposes of shorthand; I am well aware, of course, of the
current terminology in section 8 of the
Children
Act 1989.
8. Today
I have made an order giving permission to the local authority to withdraw
public law proceedings relating
to all the
children.
Although, in a
report
of
Dr Berelowitz, he was opposed to the closure of this case to the local
authority, all parties before me accept that the public law proceedings should
not continue and that there is no purpose in making supervision orders. Having
considered the decision of MacDonald J in A Local Authority v X, Y and Z
(Permission to Withdraw) [2017] EWHC 3741 (Fam) at paragraphs 47 to 53 together
with Rule 1.1 (2) of The Family Procedure Rules 2010 (the over-riding
objective), I approved the withdrawal of the public law proceedings. All
parties accepted that the threshold criteria were met on both limbs of section
31 (2) at the time of the initiation of the proceedings (i.e. both on the basis
of actual significant harm and likely significant harm at that time). All
parties submitted, and I accepted, that the continuation of the public law
proceedings and the making of supervision orders would serve no purpose now
and, in these exceptional circumstances, would be contrary to the welfare of
the
children.
The proceedings are left upon the basis that the GPs for the
children
will continue to have an involvement and will also have copies of this
judgement and an earlier judgement that I gave (the earlier judgement is not to
be published).
9. At
an earlier hearing, I recorded
the withdrawal of the private law proceedings that
the father had initiated. With very great sadness the father acknowledged that
matters had
reached
a point where he could no longer seek any private law
orders in
relation
to the
children.
The order from today will
record
the basis
of his withdrawal and his hope that, in the future, the
children
will
understand that what has happened is not of his making.
10. It is beyond doubt that, in
the long-term, what has occurred within this family will cause these children
significant and long-term emotional harm, even if they cannot understand that
now. I have said it and so have all the experts in this case. I am afraid that
the cause of that harm lies squarely with this mother; whatever may be her
difficulties, she is an adult and a
parent
with
parental
responsibility
for her
children.
That
parental
responsibility,
which she shares with the father,
requires
her to act in the best interests of her
children.
It also
required
her to
promote the
relationship
between these
children
and their father. She has failed
to do so. She had adult choices to make; the choices that she made were bad
ones and deeply harmful to the
children.
11. The history of these
proceedings is that they began by way of private law application by the father
eight years ago (i.e. in 2011). That set of proceedings continued until 2014
when an order was made that the father should have indirect contact only with
the children.
In 2016 the proceedings
resumed
and continued until the father
withdrew them
recently.
Public law proceedings were issued shortly after the
failed attempt at transfer of
residence
occurred.
12. On my counting this is now the 36th time that the proceedings have been before the court. At least 10 professional people have been involved. The first full hearing on extensive evidence took place before me six years after the first private law application was made. There was an intended final hearing which took place on some evidence in 2014 but it has not been possible to obtain a transcript of the judgment or of the evidence. It led to an unsatisfactory arrangement for indirect contact only.
13. With all the benefit of hindsight, I consider that there were these ten factors which have contributed significantly to the difficulties that have arisen:
i)
There was a failure to identify, at an early stage, the key issue in
this case – the alienation
of the
children
from their father by the mother. By
the time that it was identified, the damage had been done.
ii) Overall there has been significant delay within these proceedings.
iii)
At the early stage of the private law proceedings the case was adjourned
repeatedly
for further short
reviews.
I have counted that there were eight
orders for
review
hearings in the first two years of the private law
proceedings alone. That occurred, of course, before the current
Children
Arrangements Programme (PD 12B of The Family Procedure Rules 2010) came into
force on 22nd April 2014. Paragraph 15.3 of that Programme now
states: ‘While it is acknowledged that an interim order may be appropriate
at an early stage of court proceedings, cases should not be adjourned for a
review
(or
reviews)
of contact or other orders / arrangements and/or for
addendum section 7
reports,
unless such a hearing is necessary and for a clear
purpose that is consistent with the timetable for the child and in the child’s
best interests.’ Therefore, I think it very unlikely that there would a
succession of
review
hearings like this now; this is an example of just how
necessary the changes made by the Programme in this
respect
were.
iv)
At no point prior to my involvement in 2017 was there a full hearing on
evidence to determine what was going on in this family. There were underlying
and important allegations of fact that needed to be resolved
but my comment is
not limited to the absence of a fact-finding hearing. In my opinion, it was
essential that there should be a definitive judgment explaining the
difficulties within this family so that future work with the family members
could be based upon that judgment.
v)
The use of indirect contact in a case where there is parental
alienation
has obvious limitations, as this case demonstrates. The father’s letters, cards
and presents were being sent by him into a home environment where he was
‘demonised’, to use the terminology of Dr Berelowitz. They served no purpose in
maintaining any form of
relationship
between the father and the
children.
It is
regrettable
that there was not more perseverance in the earlier private
proceedings to
resolve
the obstructions to contact.
vi)
These proceedings have seen a vast number of professionals. I have
counted 10 and I am sure that I have omitted some. The difficulty that that
creates is obvious. Each new person brings a new, personal and different
insight into a case of this nature. Family members (especially children)
are
embarrassed about speaking of personal issues with strangers, develop
litigation fatigue and learn to
resent
the intrusions into their lives by a
succession of professional people. As the
children
have done, people
reach
a
stage where they say: ‘no more.’
vii)
A particular difficulty in this case has been the absence, at times, of
collaborative working by professionals. A particular example of that occurred
when an attempt was made to move the children
to the father’s care. The
professionals involved with the court process and the schools had not had
sufficient dialogue before that move was attempted and now have very strong and
opposing opinions about what occurred and the merits of moving the
children
from the mother. Pre-planning for the move was inadequate, in my opinion. If
professional people show their disagreements, as happened here on the day of
transfer, it undermines the process and allows cherry-picking by family members
of what they want to hear.
viii)
Early intervention is essential in a case such as this, in my opinion. It
did not occur in this case. It took years (probably five) to identify the
extent of the emotional and psychological issues of the mother. By that stage
it was too late for there to be any effective psychotherapeutic or other intervention
in relation
to her, the
children’s
views having already become so entrenched.
ix)
There is an obvious difficulty about how to approach the expressed
wishes and feelings of children
who are living in an
alienating
environment
such as this. If
children
who have been
alienated
are asked whether they wish
to have a
relationship
with the non-
resident
parent
there is a likelihood that
the
alienation
they have experienced will lead them to say ‘no.’ Therefore, in
this type of case, the approach to the wishes and feelings of
children
has had to
be approached with considerable care and professionalism. To
respond
simply on
the basis of what
children
say in this type of situation is manifestly
superficial and naive. The
children
in this case have been expressing wishes
that they should not see their father for many years now. The lack of an
effective and early enquiry into what was happening within this family meant
that there was no effective intervention. That, in turn, has led to the
children’s
expressed wishes being
reinforced
in their minds. It has also
resulted
in the mother being able to say ‘we should listen to the
children’,
rather than addressing the underlying difficulties.
x)
It was unfortunate that the joinder of the children
to the second set of
proceedings was so delayed. I was due to embark upon the first final hearing
before me two years ago with these two
parents
appearing in person. It is
fortunate that the case was adjourned for other
reasons
and I was able to take
that opportunity to join the
children.
Any attempt to conduct these proceedings
without the joinder of the
children
would have been even more complex and
unsatisfactory.
14. I now need to say some words
about the arrangements that were made for the children
to move from the care of
their mother to their father. About two years ago I heard three days of
evidence and argument following which I gave a full written judgement. By my
order I directed that the
children
should live with their father for just over
seven weeks on the basis that they would not see their mother during that
period. In my opinion, the handover went badly wrong; the
children
were
extremely distressed and
resistant
to the attempts to place them with the
father. The schools became very concerned about the level of distress that the
children
were showing, and the police became involved. Within a short period of
time after the
children
started to live with their father, they ran away from
their father several times,
refused
to eat and exhibited extreme distress. So
extreme did matters become that, after further attempts at keeping the
children
with the father, they
returned
to their mother less than a month after the hearing.
They have
remained
there since with the father having no more contact.
15. During the three-day hearing I heard evidence from three particular experts:
i) The Guardian, Ms Siobhan Donovan;
ii) Dr Nigel Blagg, psychologist.
iii) Ms Karen Woodall, a psychotherapist and the leading therapist of the Family Separation Clinic in London.
16. I have been asked to comment
on the arrangements that were made to transfer residence
to the father. In
particular, I have been asked to consider the work of Ms Woodall who led the arrangements
for the transfer to the father and also offered him professional guidance when
the
children
first moved to him. I proceed only with considerable caution in
this area of the judgment for a number of
reasons:
i) My role is to determine the applications before me. The issues that have been raised do not affect the outcome of these proceedings.
ii)
To examine all the issues that the various parties have placed before me
would involve a hearing of about five days of evidence and at least two more in
reading
and judgment preparation. To do that fails on each of the five factors
within Rule 1.1(2) of The Family Procedure Rules 2010 (the over-riding
objective) and would take this case beyond the guidance in
Re
W (A child)
[2016] EWCA Civ 1140 and A Local Authority v M and D [2003] EWHC 219 (Fam).
iii) These proceedings need to be finished. They have gone on for far too long and with far too much distress to the family.
iv)
Any such hearing would be extremely expensive and could not be placed into
my lists now until the end of March 2020. The experts would have to give
evidence and Ms Woodall would almost undoubtedly have to be represented
(as she
was before me today).
17. However, as I stated at the
hearing today, I do think that there are four points that need to be made. I
heard submissions from all counsel in relation
to them (including counsel for
Ms Woodall) and no party (including Ms Woodall) wished for there to be any
further hearings or any further evidence produced before me. The points are
these:
i)
In written advice to the court two years ago Ms Woodall had said this: ‘I
have absolutely no doubt, based my extensive experience working with the
children
should these
children
be moved to live father, they would emerge from
the
alienated
state of mind within a matter of minutes.’ I did not accept
view at the hearing when I considered it. Today Ms Woodall acknowledged that she
was being over-confident when expressing that opinion.
ii)
In her evidence at the final hearing Ms Woodall stated that she thought
that the children
had a ‘strong but suppressed attachment’ to their father
which, when
re-awakened,
would lead to a successful transfer. Dr Blagg and the
Guardian gave evidence to the contrary, saying that the passage of time and the
reaction
of the
children
to their father demonstrated that their attachment to
him was weak. At the hearing when they gave evidence I accepted the opinions of
Dr Blagg and the Guardian. I consider events have shown Dr Blagg and the
guardian to be right - the fragility of the
children’s
attachment to their
father has been demonstrated very plainly. Ms Woodall
retains
her opinion and,
I have to
recognise,
this is an issue of differing professional opinions and
case dependent.
iii)
I think that the plans for the transfer of the children
to the father involved
an underestimation of the likely
reaction
of the
children.
Although other
experts commented upon those plans, they were devised, principally, by Ms
Woodall. I do think that her opinion about the nature of the attachment between
the
children
and the father must have influenced the plans that she devised. I
recognise,
however, that the plans that she created were available for scrutiny
by the court and by the other witnesses. Further, it is important to note that the
Family Separation Clinic
revised
its protocol shortly after the transfer was attempted;
although one advocate suggested that I should attach the new protocol to this
judgment I consider that it would be inappropriate for me to do so since I
neither disapprove of nor endorse it. This case has been a steep learning curve
for many. A matter of concern to me, and learning (since I was the judge in
charge), was the absence of full and careful discussion with the
children’s
schools
notwithstanding that the transfers took place there.
iv)
Following on from the above I think that the extent and depth of the
children’s
alienation
from their father and
resistance
to him were under
estimated. That, however, is said with the benefit of hindsight and it could
not possibly be right to suggest that the
responsibility
for that lies with one
person. Three experts
recommended
immediate transfer of
residence.
Ms Woodall
recommended
that the transfer should be ‘permanent’ (meaning long-term) whereas
the other two experts supported a short-term transfer with a
review
– the
guardian proposed only a transfer of only two weeks with a
review.
In any event
as matters transpired, I did not follow the advice of Ms Woodall and even so the
transfer and period of
residence
with the father proved to be deeply traumatic.
18. In making the above comments
I do wish to record
that Ms Woodall was a court appointed expert in this case
and, although she may not be
registered
with a specific professional body and
does not practise in an area that is subject to statutory
regulation
(as I
understand it), she does have supervision from a highly
respected
consultant
child psychiatrist, lectures on issues
relating
to
parental
alienation and
gives evidence frequently before courts. All that is important, no doubt, when
considering her role as an expert in accordance with the annex to PD 25B of The
Family Procedure Rules 2010.
19. My final words in this judgment must be directed to the father. This has been a long, heart-breaking and expensive set of events for you to endure. I am truly sorry that this is the outcome and I do hope that you will find some happiness in the future despite all that has occurred.
HHJ Stephen Wildblood QC
24th September 2019.