In the American family courts, conflict is monetized and parental alienation (PA) is big business; it gets pitted against domestic abuse (DA) to line the pockets of unregulated experts, mediators, lawyers, and other service providers through a referral system. The process aggravates and lengthens conflict rather than resolves it. Studies in the USA and the UK by Professor Joan Meier and Dr Adrienne Barnett have exposed the true purpose of PA; a tactical weapon used by abusive parents to gain parenting time or custody. Children are being harmed and killed during court-ordered contact, and those in power routinely turn a blind eye to their tragic deaths. The UK has different family justice systems; however, they are spiralling down the same route, as the American business model continues to roll out here.
PA Lawyers & experts
Parental alienation, mandatory mediation, and shared parenting are all harmful concepts (in legislation) for domestic abuse adult and child victims. These concepts are promoted by the Association of Family & Conciliation Courts ( USA) who influence policy in the UK. They do this through their global network of service providers to the family courts such as CAFCASS and Relationships Scotland. Other members include judges, parental alienation lawyers, therapists and psychologists. AFCC members provide training to those involved in the family courts; training in the non-scientific theory of parental alienation. We have self-proclaimed experts who believe in systemic, short-term interventions; a ‘quick fix’ assessment that diagnoses a non-existent syndrome with a clinical test. A misogynistic syndrome, created by a disturbed character with the sole purpose to deny and conceal abuse in a courtroom. The ‘experts’ make harmful recommendations to the court to abruptly remove the child from one parent, and reunify them with the other parent.
However, as revealed in the academic research, the parent the PA ‘experts’ are pathologizing and transferring residency from is not the psychologically unsafe parent, the one who is unable to self reflect, lacks empathy, and uses power and control to win the child in court. The parent they are pathologizing is the domestic abuse victim – the parent suffering from worry, stress, anxiety and fear from the abuse they are subjected to in the relationship, which continues post-separation, through the contact arrangements. Victims are starting to refuse assessments with any assessor associated with the words ‘parental alienation’ since they know that they are being ‘stitched up’ by these unscrupulous experts in cahoots with one other.
Misconduct
The review of the family court systems in England and Wales revealed the extent of the harm to women and children; it bears striking similarities to the distress reported by domestic abuse victims in the family courts in Scotland. There is misconduct in CAFCASS, as reported by Louise Tickle in the Guardian. There is misconduct by social workers and lawyers in Scotland too. They all report the same pattern of harm.
It is a pattern which follows the beliefs that abuse should be swept under the carpet so that contact can continue regardless, and a pattern which exploits a parents trauma and uses it as evidence against them. A pattern which routinely removes the child from safety, and sends them into danger, and a pattern which puts an abusers rights before their victims’ human rights.
Ideology is at the source of the harm inflicted by the family courts today; deep-rooted beliefs in the need to preserve the family unit along with a staunch denial of domestic abuse.
Harsh and immoral treatment
In America, the court can order a mother who has had their child removed to pay $250 cash to a supervisor in some states for a one hour visit. These mothers have often already been left destitute by the court process. There are reunification camps, such as ‘Family Bridges’ where wealthy abusive parents have paid an obscene amount of money for the services of having their terrified children taken across state lines forcibly by escorts. The traumatised children then enter hotels where they must interact with the parent who has estranged themselves and then demanded their child’s love and affection, through the family courts, all to demonstrate their power and control, and hurt the safe, loved parent.
In Scotland, the system is also brutal; sheriffs are threatening victims with contempt of court or the removal of their children if they pursue the claims of abuse; mothers have gone to prison for refusing to comply with judges orders. The draconian system uses an approach incorporating punishment, trauma and force; the child’s fear throughout this process is palpable. These children vomit during their interviews. They threaten to jump out of moving car doors to avoid spending time with the dangerous parent. The police don’t want to participate in cruel removals of children; they have no choice in the matter. This was brought to light in the brave and eye-opening Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, Torn Apart.
The lengthy family court process is costing parents their homes, their savings, their careers and their mental health. The referral system is traumatizing children. To not be believed, have their views influenced and translated by welfare reporters, and be forced into the home of an abuser is betraying their trust; it’s cruel and immoral. The court process is having long term adverse effects on the child’s mental health, education and wellbeing.
The solution
It's time for the family courts to stop pitting mothers & fathers against each other. They must stop mislabelling domestic abuse cases as ‘high conflict’ and ‘intractable contact disputes’. Its time to move away from victim-blaming and deal with perpetrators appropriately. It’s time to focus on the needs of the child, not the parents. It's time to understand coercive control, and the harm it does to children and respond to that by allowing children to grow, develop and prosper rather than sentencing them to a childhood of trauma. It’s time to open the family courts to scrutiny and review the presumption of contact. It is time to hold lawyers and court experts to account when they report inaccurately to the court.
If a country has an opportunity to make a change in law, then they must be bold and grasp that opportunity with both hands. They must end the suffering and protect children from abuse once and for all.