by Lucy Hayton, Head of Policy at Right to Equality
On the 20th February 2026, the President of the Family Division issued Re Y (Experts and Alienating Behaviour: The Modern Approach) [2026] EWFC 28 (Fam). It marks an important moment in the struggle against “parental alienation”, child removal and the use of experts in family courts. In his judgment, the President sets aside findings of so-called “alienation” previously made against a domestic abuse victim mother, which had resulted in her two children, then aged 12 and 9, being removed from her care and all contact prohibited. She had been refused contact for six years.
His judgment follows the Family Justice Council Guidance on Alienating Behaviours (2024) and the recent findings in O v C [2025] EWFC 334.
Although the unregulated, so‑called “expert” in this case was Melanie Gill, the President makes clear that responsibility for this flawed outcome extends to “every agency”:
“By ‘every agency’, I am referring to CAFCASS, the children’s solicitor, the local authority and the court. This judgment is not therefore ‘about Melanie Gill’; it is, much more worryingly, about the failure of the system to act, as it should have done, in discharging its responsibility to protect the children and to prioritise their welfare needs.” [5]
The President found that the original judge’s approach was fundamentally flawed, because:
- A fact‑finding hearing should have taken place before any psychological expert was instructed, in order to consider allegations of domestic abuse and their impact on the children.
- An expert without the necessary qualifications or clinical practice with children, should never have been proposed by the children’s guardian or solicitor, nor been instructed by the court.
- The judge was wrong to accept Ms Gill’s analysis without scrutiny, hearing no other evidence after considering hers first.
One year ago, in February 2025, Right to Equality wrote to the President of the Family Division and the Ministry of Justice raising serious concerns about the use of unregulated experts, following an investigation by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Our letter, which was co‑signed by numerous violence against women organisations and campaigners, called for an urgent review of all cases in which a child had been removed in private law proceedings based on the recommendations of unregulated “alienation” experts.
At the time, the President and the then Minister for Family Justice responded by assuring us that existing appeal routes were sufficient. We disagreed and, following the case of O v C [2025] EWFC 334, we wrote again to ask for this review.
Now, in this new judgment, the President acknowledges that mothers in this position face significant barriers to appeal. He has therefore asked the Family Justice Council to consider a proposal for an alternative procedural approach for cases of this nature, which was submitted to him by the legal teams representing the mother and son.
Right to Equality welcomes this recognition of the barriers mothers face when attempting to appeal these life‑changing decisions. We urge the Family Justice Council to consider the proposal as a matter of urgency, so that children and mothers who have been wrongly and forcibly separated on the basis of pseudoscience can finally have their cases reviewed.
However, far more action is needed.
In November 2025, together with the Survivor Family Network, we launched the Action Against Child Removal Campaign in Parliament. At this event, we published findings from our small-scale survey, which revealed:
- 217 mothers had 342 children removed from their care.
- 96.8% of these mothers had raised allegations of abuse during proceedings.
- 81% were accused of failing to facilitate the child’s relationship with the father.
- In 45.6% of cases, no fact‑finding hearing was held on the abuse allegations.
On the basis of this evidence, we believe that hundreds of children and mothers have been wrongfully separated by family courts in England and Wales. This is a national scandal. We are calling for five urgent actions to begin to address these harms:
- An expedited parliamentary audit to assess evidence of forced child removals
- A statutory prohibition on forced removals based on so‑called “alienation” or similar pseudoscientific concepts
- A ban on the use of both regulated and unregulated ‘parental alienation’ experts
- Strengthened regulation of family court experts by the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC)
- A comprehensive Family Justice Bill to deliver holistic reform of children’s and victims’ rights in private family proceedings
“Parental alienation” is a harmful ideology. It has caused profound damage to children and to victim‑survivors of abuse. It is a tool used by perpetrators of violence against women, and it must be unequivocally discredited.
We are immensely grateful to all who continue to raise concerns about this practice in the legal profession and beyond. We are especially grateful to the mothers who have lost their children, endured unimaginable trauma and yet who do not give up and refuse to be silenced.
Published on 23rd February 2025