The law makes it clear that it is generally in a child’s best interests to have a relationship with both parents. This is known as the “presumption of parental involvement”.
But what if one parent has been found to have seriously abused the other? Is it then still in the child’s best interests to have a relationship with the abusive parent?
As we will see in a moment, under the law as it stands at present the answer is: “it may be”.
In other words, a finding of domestic abuse against a parent does not automatically bar that parent from seeing their child.
But an MP is trying to change that, at least for most cases.
The MP is Kate Kniveton. For the last five years Ms Kniveton has been involved in a high-profile dispute with her former husband Andrew Griffiths, who was himself an MP, over arrangements for their child, who is now some five and a half years old.
In the course of the dispute the court made some very serious findings of domestic abuse against Mr Griffiths, including that he had physically and verbally assaulted her, and even that he had raped her. The court also found that he had been abusive towards the child.
Despite these findings Mr Griffiths still pursued his application for contact with his child, and the court initially decided that Mr Griffiths should continue to have contact, at a contact centre.
The final hearing of the application took place before Mrs Justice Lieven in the High Court in January.
As Mrs Justice Lieven pointed out in her judgment, the law does provide guidance for the court in child arrangements cases where there are findings of domestic abuse. This states that the court should only make an order for contact if it is satisfied that the safety of the child and the parent with whom the child is living can, as far as possible, be secured before, during and after contact, and that the parent with whom the child is living will not be subjected to further domestic abuse by the other parent.
Having regard to this guidance Mrs Justice Lieven ordered that there should presently be no direct contact between Mr Griffiths and his child.
Ms Kniveton is now calling upon the government to change the law to bring about a presumption of no contact between an abusive parent and their children.
Justice Minister Mike Freer has confirmed that a review into the presumption of parental involvement will be published by “late spring or early summer”.
You can read the report of the final judgment in Ms Kniveton’s case here.
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