Child homicides: senior judge rebuffs implications of indifference

28 March 2006

A senior family judge has rebuffed implications in a report on domestic violence that judges’ indifference to the safety of children resulted in homicides that could have otherwise been avoided.

The report, published by Women’s Aid in 2004, investigated 29 cases of children whose parents were separated or divorced and who were killed by their fathers as a result of contact arrangements. Of those, the report identified five cases where the contact arrangement were the result of a court order.

The report advocated greater judicial involvement in contact arrangements where there was a background of domestic violence and called for more specialised training for judges and people involved in family court proceedings.

But would more training really make a difference? According to Donna Goodsell, a family law specialist at Bolt Burdon: “The level of training and awareness of domestic violence issues can vary between family court practitioners and is often dependent on the quantity and type of case to which one is exposed. As such, it is impossible to determine generally whether practitioners are sufficiently aware of and trained, however, one would expect practitioners to have the benefit of supervision which should ensure that any issues of concern or difficulty are effectively addressed.”

Last week’s report by Lord Justice Wall follows his own recommendations at the time the Women’s Aid report was published that a senior judge should look into these cases.

The senior judge expressed some scepticism about the report’s conclusions and methodology, “particularly the implication that judges were indifferent to the safety of children when making contact orders”. But he went on to say that allegations that an order has led to a child’s death should be “slightly more than anecdotal” and “be investigated properly.”

Lord Justice Wall considered the five cases where it had been acknowledged that the homicides were the consequence of court orders and, in the main, exonerated those involved in the judicial process.

He found that in three cases, involving 11 children, the fathers’ actions “could not have been reasonably foreseen or prevented by the court,” and that “no criticism can be made of the judges who made the respective contact orders”.

In relation to the remaining two cases, which involved three children, Lord Justice Wall said it was “arguable that the court should have taken a more proactive stance and refused to make a consent order for contact”, but that “the orders were made in what the judges concerned genuinely believed to be in the best interests of the children”.

Goodsell says that the judiciary are aware of domestic violence issues and that judges will consider such issues when exploring the best interests of the child. “The application of those criteria together with a requirement that the judiciary undergo comprehensive training designed specifically to address domestic violence should ensure that a necessarily rigorous approach contact disputes is maintained.”

Nevertheless, the report makes three recommendations. First, that a report be prepared for the Family Justice Council on the approach to be taken when dealing with proposed consent orders in contact cases where domestic violence is an issue. Second, the overall approach should be more rigorous where a parent is known to have been violent to the other. And third, no judge should sit for the first time in private family court proceedings without having undergone adequate training in dealing with domestic violence issues.

“The three recommendations made by Lord Justice Wall in his report have been accepted by Sir Mark Potter, President of the Family Division who in turn, has indicated an intention to refer the Report to the Family Justice Council”, said Goodsell. “The Council will be asked to address the issue of the courts’ approach to consent orders in cases of contact involving domestic violence and I look forward to hearing of their recommendations as to how the system could be improved.”