A Xmas gift for mothers and children: family court guidance finally debunks ‘parental alienation’ PRESS RELEASE from Support Not Separation, 11 Dec 2024

Today the Family Justice Council has issued guidance to family court judges in cases where mothers report domestic violence and abusive fathers counter this with allegations of ‘parental alienation’ to force their children to see them.

The Guidance states that

There is no equivalence between domestic abuse and Alienating Behaviours.  Domestic abuse is a criminal offence and both a parent/carer and a child may be a victim . . .

And goes on to say:

For the avoidance of doubt, the Family Justice Council recognises that “parental alienation syndrome” has no evidential basis and is considered a harmful pseudo-science.

This is a long overdue victory for the movement of mothers who have fought for decades in family court to protect children from violent fathers, including convicted rapists and child abusers. This guidance must now be implemented and we will be monitoring the courts in our continued defence of children and mothers against violent men.

Until now CAFCASS, social workers and judges have insisted that children must be forced to have contact with their father and that their ‘reluctance, resistance or refusal’, or should be dismissed as ‘parental alienation’. Mothers who know fathers to be abusive to their children, including sexually, have had to enforce such court orders or be punished by having the children taken from them and given to the abusive father. The lives of children and mothers have been put at risk and some have been murdered or committed suicide as a result.

A year ago, Women Against Rape & the Support Not Separation Coalition (co-ordinated by Legal Action for Women) who work with hundreds of mothers trying to protect their children from violent men, gave evidence to the Family Justice Council’s consultation. Our recommendations  included that there should be:

An end to all reference of parental alienation or alienating behaviours [PA/AB] and ban so-called PA/AB “experts” regulated or not. We said that courts should value a child’s reasons for wanting no contact with fathers accused of violence and desist from forcing children into unwanted contact – that is child abuse.

We are delighted that women and women’s organisations are finally being listened to. This guidance comes almost four years after the path-breaking Harm Report which recognised that the family courts are ‘sexist, racist and class biased’ – and we always add disability discrimination. The previous government and the family courts took no action to implement the findings of the Harm report. Today’s guidance is a nail in the coffin of the ‘presumption of contact’ promoted by the fathers’ lobby which denies domestic abuse and has embedded itself in CAFCASS and the family court.

We now need to know how many children, and women, have been harmed as a result of years of family court rulings backing men’s false claims of ‘parental alienation’. And how many are children of colour who suffered additional discrimination. And how many men, including policemen, have escaped prosecution for their violence by claiming ‘parental alienation’. We will begin then to understand how much damage has been done to children, families, especially single mother families, and communities by the enforcement of such sexist court orders.

Family Justice Council Guidance https://www.judiciary.uk/related-offices-and-bodies/advisory-bodies/family-justice-council/latest-news/

WAR/SNS evidence to Family Justice Council: https://supportnotseparation.blog/2023/10/18/evidence-to-family-justice-council-no-to-parental-alienation-alienating-behaviours/

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