Child removed from mother who repeatedly made unsubstantiated allegations of abuse against father

We are quite rightly often reminded of the awful effect of domestic abuse upon children, and how important it is that the court takes abuse allegations seriously when considering arrangements for children.

But the job of the court is of course not simply to accept such allegations as fact. It must investigate the allegations, and decide whether they have been proved, before considering what effect they have upon the outcome of a child arrangements dispute.

And sometimes the court will find that the allegations are just not true, as occurred in a recent case that took place in the Family Court sitting at Guildford.

The case concerned a dispute between parents over arrangements for their three-year-old daughter. The mother is an Australian national who travelled to the UK in 2018, where she met the father. Their relationship ended in December 2022, with the child remaining with the mother. Since then, there have been almost continuous proceedings relating to the child.

In the course of those proceedings the mother was found to have repeatedly made unsubstantiated allegations of domestic abuse against the father, and based upon them she regularly moved home with the child (on her account 17 times during the previous 12 months). She continued to develop further allegations, and appeared to focus on these, to the apparent exclusion of everything else.

The mother’s false allegations included that the father had stalked her, that he presented a critical homicide risk to her and the child, and that he had sexually abused the child.

These and other findings led the judge to make an Interim Care Order, to protect the child. And the local authority became so concerned about the mother’s behaviour, including not cooperating with its investigations, that it recommended that the child be moved to live with the father. The court approved this plan, and the child was transferred from her mother to her father.

The matter then proceeded to a final hearing, when the court had to consider not just the long-term arrangements for the child, but also an application by the mother for permission to relocate with the child to Australia. The mother initially attended the hearing, but also filed a 33-page witness statement at 7.21 am on the first day of the hearing (she had been ordered to file it not less than nine days earlier). The court refused to allow the statement into evidence, and after this the mother refused to attend the rest of the hearing.

In the course of the hearing the court made a number of further findings against the mother, including that if she were to have unsupervised contact with the child there was a high risk that she would abduct the child, denigrate the father to the child, and use it as an opportunity to prove that the child was abused, or badly cared for by the father.

In the circumstances, the court decided to make a number of orders, including the following:

1. That the child live with the father.
2. That the mother’s contact with the child be supervised, and that the supervision should remain in place indefinitely, until further order of the Court.
3. That the mother be prevented from removing the child from the care of the father, or any third party to whom he has entrusted her care.
4. That the mother’s application for permission to relocate to Australia be dismissed.
5. That the mother be prevented from posting online about the proceedings.
6. That the father be the only parent entitled to apply for and hold the child’s passport.
7. That the mother be barred from making any further applications without the permission of the court, until the child attains the age of 13.
8. Lastly, in the light of the mother’s failure to attend earlier hearings or to comply with court orders, the mother was required to pay a substantial part of the father’s legal costs.

You can read the full report of the case here.

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