Published: 9 October 2024

CAFCASS has produced a new Domestic Abuse Practice policy which ‘Children’s Guardians must follow in protecting child and adult victims of domestic abuse’.

We strongly suggest anyone in family court who is dealing with a CAFCASS officer reads this policy so that you can hold them to it! It doesn’t go far enough in recognising the dangers of forcing children into contact (or residence) with violent fathers, but it is an improvement on their practice up to now. For years, mothers have complained that CAFCASS officers have downplayed, dismissed or ignored their experiences as victims of domestic violence as “historic” and not relevant to the issue of children’s contact with violent fathers. And we know that misogynist fathers’ groups have long been embedded as CAFCASS stakeholders!

But the mothers’ movement demanding change in the family courts, and in particular the fact that journalists can now report on family court cases (including those where CAFCASS have been strongly criticised as being “not fit for purpose”) has forced CAFCASS to change their approach – at least on paper! We must now make sure that ALL CAFCASS officers implement this policy throughout every report they write, and if they don’t, they must be strongly challenged in court.

And if a CAFCASS officer in the past has contradicted this new policy, get legal advice about whether this would be grounds to make an out of time appeal against a ruling that a child must live with or spend time with a perpetrator.

For example, their new policy says practitioners must NOT:

• dismiss or minimise domestic abuse as “historical” or as a one-off incident . ..
• reinterpret or reword the experience of domestic abuse victims . . . an adult describing a rape must not be re-interpreted as “non-consensual sex” or “unwanted sexual attention”
• use language such as “claims” or “alleges” when a person reports domestic abuse
• support or recommend any contact (direct or otherwise) or spending time arrangements, where the resident parent and child are currently living in a refuge . .
• describe someone as anxious or suffering from mental ill-health unless clinically diagnosed without considering and understanding that a victim’s feelings of anxiety and fear, behaviour and actions may be a trauma response to their experience of abuse

And that:

. . a parent being investigated by the police for a sexual offence, has a conviction for a sexual offence and/or has served a prison sentence for a sexual offence, provides a clear starting point to inform a recommendation for a child not to spend time with that parent due to the significant risks that exist

We are also fighting for abolition of the “presumption of contact” which allows violent fathers to pursue claims for contact with children who want nothing to do with them, because of violence against them, and/or their mothers.