Legal News

A leading judge has warned social workers not to automatically believe parents’ accusations of domestic violence against each other when marriages or relationships break down.

Mrs Justice Parker was ruling on the case of a mother of three boys, whom she said had manipulated her children and social workers using allegations of domestic violence against the boys’ father.

The Mail online reports the unnamed father had wanted his sons to spend Christmas with him, but their mother had accused him of domestic violence and social workers decided the children should stay with her.

On Monday (23/12/13) Mrs Justice Parker overturned the decision and ruled that the eldest boy should live with his grandmother, while the younger boys should live with their father, until the case returned to court.

The judge said that the boys’ mother had manipulated her eldest son – aged 15 – into believing her allegations against his father of domestic violence; and had coerced her son into acting as her “knight in shining armour” in taking sides with her against his father.

Mrs Justice Parker said social workers in the case had not questioned the allegations of domestic violence against the father made by the mother. She said that in broken marriages, parents can both “rewrite” the history of the relationship – and added that social workers had also ignored signs that the mother was “emotionally troubled”.

The hearing in the family court heard that the mother had herself been violent towards her children – and had also inappropriately used her son as her own personal “confidante” and had allowed him to act as the disciplinarian at home towards his younger brothers. The eldest boy had sent his younger brothers texts urging them to “resist contact” with their father.

“Parents who obstruct the relationship with either mother or father are inflicting untold damage on their children – and it’s about time the professionals truly understood this,” said Mrs Justice Parker; who went on to say that she felt the mother’s manipulation of her eldest son was “doing him harm”.
“I am in no doubt that he feels he needs to fight his mother’s corner on contact,’ she told the hearing. “I don’t think that he is developing as he should under her influence and in her home.
“I cannot trust him to co-operate and I think it’s doing him harm – at his age he should be regarding both of his parents as out of touch and useless, rather than siding with one against the other.
“The extent to which he has become a knight in shining armour for his mother is truly concerning,” said Mrs Justice Parker.
The hearing in the Family Division of the High Court also heard that the eldest boy suffered from violent episodes himself – and although his parents were both intelligent and articulate, he was the carrier of “toxic emotions” for the whole family.

Mrs Justice Parker concluded that although the father was not “an angel” he did show genuine concern for his sons and had “far more empathy” than the mother.

“I take domestic violence extremely seriously,” she added. “It is a terrible social evil when it exists.

“But not all allegations of domestic violence and abuse are true – and at the end of a stormy and difficult marriage, as this has been between the parents of the children, it is very easy for parents to re-write history in their own minds.

“Much as I would like to give these boys Christmas as they believe they want it, it is unsafe for them to spend Christmas Day with their mother and her family,” she concluded.


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