Feelings can run high when separated parents try to sort out arrangements for their children.
But sometimes a parent might resort to extreme measures to get their way by inventing false allegations. And if they think things are going against them, they may stop cooperating with the court.
Such actions are unlikely to end well. An extreme example of what can happen in such circumstances occurred in a recent case that took place in the Central Family Court in London.
The case concerned a dispute between parents over arrangements for their daughter, who was born in 2019. The case was described as “very sad” by the father’s barrister, a description with which the judge agreed.
The proceedings began in 2020 when the father sought contact with his daughter, who was then living with the mother.
The mother responded by making various allegations of abuse against the father, including that he had sexually abused her eldest daughter (by a different father). Most of those allegations were found to be untrue by the court and grossly exaggerated by the mother. The allegation of sexual abuse was found to have been falsely and maliciously made with no justification at all.
Shortly before the final hearing the mother made an allegation to the police that the father had sexually abused his own daughter. This was investigated by the court and once again it was found that the mother had wrongly accused the father.
Following that finding the mother made it clear that she would, regardless of whatever order the court made, refuse to allow the child to have any contact face-to-face with her father until she was an adult.
Having been given ample opportunity to reflect on that position, the mother maintained her stance. The court therefore made an Interim Care Order with the support of the Local Authority, with an interim plan for the child to move from her mother’s care to her father’s. That happened shortly afterwards.
The mother then stopped cooperating with the court entirely, including failing to file a witness statement, as directed by the court. She told the court that this was a deliberate choice, as she decided there was no point in complying.
At the final hearing the court decided that the child should remain with her father, as living with her mother would expose her to an extremely high risk of significant emotional harm.
The court also decided that, until there was some shift in the mother’s thinking, she should only have supervised contact with the child at a contact centre.
However, the mother made clear to the judge that she would not attend the contact centre, and would not communicate with the father in any way for any purpose. The judge therefore reluctantly decided to make no order for contact.
In addition, in the light of the mother’s “utter fixation” on the deliberately false narrative that she had pursued against the father, combined with her repeated non-compliance with court orders, the judge made a prohibited steps order preventing the mother from removing the child from the father’s care or from any organisation, education provider or individual into whose care she is entrusted by the father, without written agreement.
Lastly, the court made an order that the mother should pay the father’s costs, in the sum of £26,000.
You can read the full report of the case here.
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