A new judgment exemplifies how family courts enable abusers to play the system.
Summary of the judgement:
- The father has perpetrated serious abuse against the mother and child, as found at an earlier fact finding.
- The father underwent therapeutic work and demonstrated apparent ‘insight’ into his behaviour and so is therefore able to have un-supervised contact with his child, progressing to overnight.
- The father has recently pleaded “not guilty” in criminal court to the same offences; worse still he has told the police that he was in fact the victim and acting in “self-defence”.
Barrister for the mother, Eleanor Marsh of 3PB Barristers, writes:
The recently published case of FH v MH (PH12J: Parallel Criminal Proceedings) [2026] EWFC 195 (B) highlights an interesting question of the relationship between the assessment of risk within the Family Court and ongoing criminal proceedings. The Court applied the Resolution model, which was considered in the case of J (A Child) (Resolutions Model) [2021] EWFC 58 – (although this case relates to public law proceedings), finding that maintaining a guilty plea within criminal proceedings need not be fatal to an assessment of risk within the Family Courts. The emphasis, instead, is upon whether the party has demonstrated meaningful behavioural change and whether the identifiable risks can be safely managed going forward.
In my view, it is extremely difficult to reconcile this approach with the safeguards purporting to protect victims of domestic abuse within Practice Direction 12J when applying the facts of this judgment.
The mother had given evidence over the course of several days at a finding of fact hearing in 2025, which in itself would have been deeply traumatic. Serious findings of abuse towards both the mother and the children were made against the father. Following the finding of fact hearing, the father stated that he ‘unequivocally’ accepted the findings of the Court and engaged in therapeutic work. The therapeutic work was not undertaken on a Single Joint Expert basis, and no permission had been granted to the father to disclose the judgment from the finding of fact hearing to form the basis of the work. Despite this, the father was granted permission to call her as a witness at both the interim stage and the final hearing.
In January 2026, the father pleaded not guilty in the criminal court to the same incidents examined and found to be true in the finding of fact hearing. The mother immediately made a C2 application for direct contact to cease, to update police disclosure, and for Cafcass to examine the impact of the not guilty plea within their updated Child Impact Report.
“I am distraught and very upset that the Applicant appears to have manipulated the family court into believing that he had insight into his violent conduct towards me and was showing remorse.”
Within her application she stated – “I am distraught and very upset that the Applicant appears to have manipulated the family court into believing that he had insight into his violent conduct towards me and was showing remorse. By pleading not guilty, he has shown no remorse as findings of fact were made against him by DJ Hadley on 28th April 2025 for the same incidents for which he has pleaded not guilty in the criminal court. I believe he is trying to make a mockery of the family court decision.” (paragraph 13 of the judgment).
Despite the father maintaining at an earlier hearing that he was simply putting the prosecution to proof as is his right in proceedings where the burden of proof is higher and his liberty may be at stake, his pre-prepared interview statement within the police disclosure proved this to be entirely incorrect –
“I, [father], say as follows. I deny any form of coercive or controlling behaviour towards [mother]. I have never engaged in negative behaviour that could be termed love bombing or gaslighting towards her. I have never made threats of any nature towards [mother] as a means of getting my own way in our relationship. I have never threatened to cause her physical or emotional harm, and have never attempted to do so. Any of my actions were in self-defence.
I have never been financially abusive towards her. I deny efforts to financially control [mother] or use any form of financial regulation as a means of demanding respect from [mother]. I have never started any verbal or physical abuse or assault towards her. There were occasions where she physically assaulted me and I would need to defend myself. My actions were always in self-defence. I deny any of the allegations of assault on holiday or otherwise or elsewhere, including kicking, slapping and punching [mother] when she was pregnant. I cannot know exactly why [mother] is making these allegations. But we are in the process of resolving child custody arrangements in the family court and I believe that her desire to influence the outcome of that is one of the reasons for the allegations.”
This is not a question of putting the prosecution to proof. This is the father advancing the same positive case as advanced at the finding of fact hearing, whilst maintaining that he has demonstrated meaningful behavioural change. How can both of these statements co-exist?
The mother and the children are victims of domestic abuse. The ongoing trauma suffered by the mother as a result of facilitating contact despite the father’s not guilty plea and looming criminal trial will ensure that the father’s found abuse of the mother has continued well into separation. This is directly relevant to the Court’s assessment of parental capacity and the environment to which the children are exposed. How could this possibly be safe for the children and their primary carer when one applies PD 12J?
The Resolution approach may well have been appropriate if the father was simply putting the prosecution to proof. But in my view, the dichotomy of his ‘acceptance’ within the family court and maintaining his victim status within the criminal courts based on the same version of events put forward at the finding of fact hearing sits directly at odds with PD 12J. He continues to deny, attack, and reverse the role of victim and offender, painting the mother to be vindictive. The entire premise of holding a finding of fact hearing is to provide a factual basis for any welfare report and ultimate welfare decision and the basis for an accurate assessment of risk.
The ‘not guilty’ plea will inevitably result in further trauma for the mother during the criminal investigation process and at trial. However, in my view it is not the ‘not guilty’ plea per se that is most troubling in this case: it is the positive case mounted by the father. If the Courts were to endorse an approach whereby an individual can maintain the same version of events at the welfare stage as they did at the fact find stage, but somehow still persuade a Court that they have demonstrated meaningful behavioural change to reduce the risks to the other parent and child, the entire finding of fact process is rendered superfluous and could simply be described as a traumatic process for the victims of domestic abuse with no real benefit to the proceedings.
The fact that this father engaged in over 40 hours of therapeutic intervention and still maintained his fact find position within his police interview and at the final hearing, in my view, is the most troubling factor of all. Therapeutic intervention to decrease the found risks attributable to an individual’s behaviour must serve as more than a box-ticking exercise; otherwise, this again is rendered superfluous. If a parent alternates between acceptance, minimisation, and denial – ‘not pleading guilty to something [I have] not done’ – (paragraph 62 of the judgment), this will create an extraordinarily difficult emotional environment for both the children and their primary carer, which must then increase the risks to be considered within PD 12J. In my view, this also cannot then equate to meaningful insight and sustained behavioural change: fundamentally, an individual cannot demonstrate genuine remorse whilst still presenting as the victim.
Further guidance is vital for these difficult situations that are far too common in the Family Courts and for the victims of domestic abuse who suffer through lengthy, retraumatising proceedings.
Final comments from Right to Equality:
This finding in our view contradicts the guidance judges should follow when domestic abuse is raised. It also raises concerns about the precedent this sets. With the backlogs in the criminal courts, family courts are usually hearing allegations before criminal proceedings can conclude. This judgment encourages perpetrators to “play the system” by accepting findings in one arena but denying them in another.
This mother must now allow her children to be unsupervised with this perpetrator every weekend while she waits for another two years to go to court yet again where she faces being discredited on the stand.
Judgments like this seriously undermine victim and survivors’ trust in the family court system. They also put children and victims at risk and tell perpetrators they can “play the game” to get contact with their children at the expense of their victim’s welfare.
We are still waiting for the repeal of the presumption of parental involvement in legislation. Whilst the future of the Courts and Tribunals Bill remains unclear, judgments like this continue to prioritise contact over safety.