24-hour vigil for adult and child survivors of family court
15th April 2026
Speech by Dr Adrienne Barnett
I will be talking about the presumption of contact in family court proceedings and the statutory presumption of parental involvement. The UK Parliament is currently considering a Bill that will remove the statutory presumption from the Children Act 1989, a provision which should never have been legislated in the first place. I make no apology for speaking about the family courts in gendered terms because the way in which the family courts operate and apply the law is profoundly gendered.
What is the pro-contact culture?
The Judge interviewed for the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s recent Report said, it is rare that the father is so vile that he won’t get some contact.” This quotation encapsulates the pro-contact culture. It means the strong promotion of ongoing contact between children and fathers after parental separation and is the key priority of the family justice private law system. The higher courts repeatedly emphasise that ‘cogent’ or ‘compelling’ reasons are required to refuse contact, that courts should not ‘give up’ on contact, and that it should only be terminated as a last resort. It is the biggest obstacle to improving protection for children from domestic abuse and other risks of harm in the family courts. Repeated attempts have been made over the past 26 years to improve the family court response to domestic abuse but none have succeeded in shifting the harmful presumption of contact.
The consequences of the strong presumption of contact
Bear in mind that domestic abuse is, as the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s recent report found, the ‘everyday business’ of the family courts – evidenced in 87% of case files reviewed. But the presumption of contact has led to domestic abuse being minimised and ignored by the family courts and therefore regarded as irrelevant.Professors Mandy Burton and Rosemary Hunter, in their research for the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report, observed court hearings where domestic abuse was visibly happening right in front of them in the courtroom but the court actors were completely oblivious to this.
Mothers trying to protect their children are often regarded as obstructive, while abusive fathers are awarded contact without any expectation of changing their behaviour. This is misogyny, and the family court system is infested with it. Therefore, domestic abuse makes no difference to the orders made by the family courts which are generally for overnight unsupervised contact. There have been some good decisions by the higher courts, and by some lower court judges, and nothing I say detracts from that. But they are a drop in the ocean of the everyday practice of the lower courts up and down the land.
The statutory presumption of parental involvement
Added to this, since 2014 we have had the pro contact culture put on a statutory footing when the presumption of parental involvement was added to the Children Act 1989. This is not a longstanding legislative principle and nor was there much support for it. On the contrary, the Family Justice Review Panel received widespread opposition to a statutory presumption including from judicial and professional bodies and the House of Commons Justice Committee. The Panel’s final report recommended against a statutory presumption.
Nevertheless, the UK government went ahead and introduced a presumption in Section 1(2A) of the Children Act 1989. It requires courts to presume that involvement of a parent in a child’s life will further the child’s welfare so long as that parent can be involved in a way that does not put the child at risk of suffering harm. And it is presumed that a parent’s involvement will not put the child at risk of harm unless there is evidence to the contrary.
The impact of the presumption of parental involvement
The presumption has provided a statutory foundation for the existing approach of the courts and reinforces and entrenches the damaging pro-contact culture. Case law indicates that the statutory presumption has raised the bar against ordering no contact. The toxic mix of the legislative presumption, the case law and the strong pro-contact culture has led to victims of domestic and sexual abuse – mothers and children – being forced to maintain contact with their abuser and be dragged through the courts for months and years, causing physical, psychological and financial devastation. We know from the Harm Panel Report that the presumption gives abusive fathers power over mothers and children and a legal weapon the abuser can use at will. It elevates a father’s right to family life above the child’s welfare and right to be safe from abuse. It provides an added tool for the pressure and coercion on victim/survivor mothers to agree to contact.
Although the law can enforce parental involvement on a protective parent and a resistant child, a non-resident parent cannot be compelled to spend time or be involved with their child. So the presumption of contact and parental involvement operates in a very one-sided, gendered way. Research has found that in the few cases that ended with no contact this was usually when the father had disengaged from the proceedings and from contact.
Rebutting the presumption
One may say that it is always open to survivors to rebut the presumption. However, rebutting the presumption creates a double burden on victim parents – to prove that the other parent’s involvement will not further the child’s welfare and to prove that that parent’s involvement will put the child at risk of harm. We know from research and the Harm Panel report that there is already an impossible burden on mothers to prove the abuse they have sustained.
We also know that the presumption is rarely disapplied. However, most cases in which domestic abuse is raised do not even get to the point of the allegations being tested because fact-finding hearings are so rare. A study by Walsh found only one completed fact-finding hearing out of 102 family court case files reviewed. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s ‘Everyday Business’ report found that fact-finding hearings were held in only 4% of the cases in the file data. This is an extraordinarily low proportion, bearing in mind that there was evidence of domestic abuse in 87% of the case files. If contested allegations are not adjudicated on then they are treated as not having happened. The abuse is simply ignored and cannot be mentioned. So, in the vast majority of domestic abuse cases, victims never even get the opportunity to rebut the presumption. The only family member who benefits from this is the perpetrator.
No other presumptions
There are no other legislative presumptions that apply to child arrangements cases. There is not even a presumption against the involvement of a parent who has perpetrated domestic or child abuse, despite the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 recognising that children can be victims in their own right. In light of the prevalence of domestic abuse in family court cases, a sole presumption that involvement of a parent in a child’s life benefits their welfare is ridiculous and illogical, as it could – or should – be disapplied in the majority of cases.
What about children’s voices?
Children are often the forgotten victims of domestic abuse – forgotten by everyone other than the mothers trying to protect them. Children, like their mothers, are also the silenced victims of domestic abuse. We know from research that they are rarely allowed to participate in the proceedings that are all about themselves. Where professionals do speak to children, a selective approach is taken to their views, based on whether they accord with the prevailing pro-contact culture.
I would like to quote from Stephanie Holt’s Irish study, which equally applies to England and Wales. Her study revealed “a silenced majority of children … who felt that no one cared what they thought or listened to them on the rare occasions they were asked for their opinion”; children who challenged the “presumption that contact is either in the child’s best interests and/or something they actually want”.
‘Parental alienation’
Children’s fears of an abusive parent can also be blamed on so-called ‘parental alienation’. In recent years, mothers have increasingly faced counter-allegations of ‘parental alienation’. These claims have gained traction in the family courts because the presumption of contact and parental involvement has provided a basis for mothers who oppose or raise concerns about contact to be regarded as obstructive, lying, and alienating. Mothers have been demonised in the family courts for years. 20 years ago we had ‘implacable hostility’, today it is ‘parental alienation’.
It is even worse if mothers disclose child sexual abuse. Then they are accused of being manipulative, lying or delusional, in other words, mad or bad. The family courts very rarely believe that children have been sexually abused by their fathers, unless they have been convicted, and we know how rare that is.
Counter-allegations of ‘parental alienation’ are a powerful tool for abusers and have caused untold harm for children and mothers. Mothers are afraid to even raise domestic abuse for fear of being accused of parental alienation. The pro-contact culture and claims of PA can lead to mothers losing the care of their children to abusive fathers and ending up with minimal or no contact with their children. Mothers may also be threatened with child removal if they don’t promote contact.
A survey conducted by Right to Equality in autumn 2025 found that the 217 mothers who responded had 342 children removed from their care. Nearly 97% of the mothers had raised allegations of abuse during the proceedings, most commonly domestic abuse.
The spread of ‘parental alienation’ in the family court system and increase in child removals has been spurred on by an industry of experts, regulated and unregulated, who diagnose PA and inevitably recommend removal from the mother. There is also a shadowy industry of therapists who are generating huge profits by conducting reunification therapy, sometimes for months and years, with very little, if any oversight, by the courts.
What about the impact of repealing the statutory presumption on mothers?
You may ask whether repealing the statutory presumption will adversely impact on mothers whose children have been removed to abusive fathers, and this is a valid and serious concern. However, there is no evidence that the statutory presumption of parental involvement has ever assisted mothers. Mothers who have lost the care of their children to fathers after accusations of ‘parental alienation’ rarely, if ever, benefit from the pro-contact culture or the statutory presumption.
If contact is ordered after child removal and fathers withhold or refuse it, the courts really couldn’t seem to care less. The more likely outcome, if the mother applies to the court, is for the court to curtail their contact even further. The presumption of contact therefore operates in a specifically gendered way. Mothers may even be prohibited from all contact with their children until they have undertaken lengthy and expensive ‘therapy’ recommended by a PA expert.
Will repealing the statutory presumption make any difference?
You may also ask, if the pro-contact culture is so strong, will repealing the statutory presumption make any difference? Repealing the statutory presumption is a vital step in dismantling the pro-contact culture and the ‘parental alienation’ apparatus it has spawned. The Government Review Government Review last year identified that the statutory presumption alone is not the driving force behind the pro-contact culture. However, the Review found that it played a role in, and reinforces, the ‘no stone unturned’ approach that permeates proceedings and drives decision-making. It is an integral part of that system. Essentially, it will be almost impossible to change the approach of the courts and end the pro-contact culture while it is cast in stone in legislation.
And now the children are coming!
Children are now starting to take matters into their own hands. In Re Y [2026] EWFC 38, a 15-year-old boy went before the President of the Family Division and asked to be allowed to return to his mother from whom he and his sister were wrongfully removed six years previously.
Yesterday an article was published by the journalist, Hannah Summers, for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. It provides an interview with a courageous young woman, Florence, who was brutally removed from her mother at the age of 10 by the family court and placed with her father despite findings of domestic abuse being made against him. Florence was finally able to return to her mother when she was allowed to make her own application to the court at the age of nearly 16.
I would like to quote from a recent letter that Florence wrote to Sir Andrew McFarlane who has just retired as President of the Family Division: “I was removed from my mother’s care within hours of a court order being made… I spent the ensuing five years faced with professional after professional who refused to believe me. They said I was repeating my mother’s words and that, despite findings of domestic abuse, it was better to have a relationship with the person who frightened me.” Florence told Hannah Summers: “Mum always told me if I wanted a relationship with my father she would support me, and I never doubted her. But it wasn’t what I wanted – and no one believed I’d reached that decision on my own. I felt powerless.”
In October 2025 the UK Government took the very welcome step of deciding to repeal the statutory presumption. This is very much welcomed. The Courts and Tribunals Bill, which contains the repeal clause, is currently in the Committee Stage in the House of Commons.
The children and young people like Florence and the boy in Re Y are asking questions about why the family justice system inflicted such harm on them. Those Members of Parliament who oppose the repeal need to consider that these young people may well ask why steps were not taken to end the systemic injustice when there was the opportunity to do so. But we should not expect or rely on these child victims to change a brutal system created by the adults. It is incumbent on those of us with a voice to ensure that change happens, for their benefit and the benefit of their mothers.
What else do we want?
Repeal of the statutory presumption is the first step to a safer family justice system with children’s welfare at its heart. We also need legislation that outlaws the use of the ‘parental alienation’ belief system and prohibits the appointment of experts, regulated and unregulated, who use the PA belief system in whatever terminology they adopt.
We need legislation that stops the harmful removal of children on the basis that a parent is not promoting contact with the other parent and that ensures that children’s views are always listened to and accurately conveyed rather than translated.
We need legislation that ensures that risk is rigorously assessed based on evidence rather than stereotypical assumptions.
We cannot achieve this piecemeal – what we need is a Family Justice Bill that ensures a system with fairness, safety and equality at its foundation. This is what Right to Equality is calling for and campaigning for.
Finally, I hope that the family justice system, the UK Parliament and the UK Government listen to Florence’s strong advice: “It’s so important to believe young people when they say something is wrong. It can take so much to say it and losing faith in a system designed to protect you is painful.”
Published 17 April 2026.