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High Court rules father was wrongly barred from home after “unproven allegations” of domestic violence (17 December 2014)

Date: 17/12/2014
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, High Court rules father was wrongly barred from home after “unproven allegations” of domestic violence

A judge has branded “Kafka-esque” the family court’s treatment of a man issued with a court order which prevented him from seeing his children without any prior notice.

The Daily Mail reports that the husband and father – known only as Mr R – was unaware that his wife had made a secret application to the court claiming he made her engage in distasteful sexual practices, was financially controlling and that she was at risk from him.

Lawyers for Mrs R claimed that her husband had “shoved her, thrown objects and had pushed her to the floor 17 years ago”.

The financial control he was supposed to exert over her referred to a credit card bill which had prompted a row between the couple.

Mrs R had contacted family lawyers in May 2014 hoping to persuade her husband to leave their home. As a result, lawyers applied for the court order, claiming she was at risk from her husband.

As a result of the court granting a molestation order against him, Mr R was thrown out of his home without warning – and was also effectively barred from seeing his six children for five months, while his appeal reached the High Court.

At one point, Mr R was jailed for a day, after he pleaded guilty to breaching the court order by phoning his wife directly rather than contacting her through her lawyers.

The laws which ban violent partners from contacting abuse victims are designed to protect victims of domestic violence and their children.

However, sitting in the Appeal Court, Mr Justice Jackson said the man had been the victim of an injustice as a result of a court order having been granted on the basis on “unproven allegations” – and the ban on him contacting his wife or seeing his children was granted “in proceedings of which he was unaware”.

The hearing took place on 20 June before a District Judge and lasted just five minutes, the High Court heard – and Mrs R’s lawyers had not contacted her husband to advise him of the proceedings beforehand.

The first Mr R knew of what had happened was when he arrived home from work later in June.

Mrs R allowed him to spend the night at the family home and he left the next day.

He was arrested a few days later, after calling his wife rather than her lawyers to ask about the case she had initiated without telling him. After the phone call, Mrs R had contacted police, who arrested Mr R and held him overnight before taking him to court the next day.

Mr R had no legal representation and as a result he pleaded guilty to a breach of the court order by phoning his wife and was sentenced to one day in jail.

At the High Court, Mr Justice Jackson said:

“He was a man of good character who now has a criminal record. And … the effect of the original order was to deprive him of contact with his children for fully five months.

“All in all, Mr R could be forgiven for feeling like the hapless protagonist in Kafka’s The Trial.”

The Trial tells the tale of a man arrested and tried for a non-specified crime by a remote authority which never reveals the nature of his alleged crime.

The High Court said that the court order obtained by Mrs R should never have been granted – and ruled that Mr R had been subject to 11 injustices by the courts which granted and maintained the order.

Mrs R claimed she had begged the police not to arrest and jail her husband after he telephoned her, but her lawyer told her to contact them.

Mr R has now been allowed contact with his children, but says that he is disillusioned with the criminal justice system, “which removes me from my home and family with a completely fabricated statement”.

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