That this House has considered domestic abuse and safeguarding within the family justice system.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. The family courts make some of the most important decisions that any institution can make. They determine where children will live, how they will maintain relationships with their parents, and how families rebuild their lives after separation. At their best, they provide protection, stability and justice, but far too many survivors of domestic abuse do not experience the family court as a place of safety. Instead, many describe it as a continuation of abuse through legal processes, repeated trauma and unsafe decision making.
Today’s debate is vital because there is now substantial evidence from survivors, frontline organisations, legal professionals and independent reviews that domestic abuse is too often minimised, misunderstood or inadequately recognised in family court proceedings. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report “Everyday business”, published in 2025, found evidence of domestic abuse in around 87% of the family court cases that it examined. Yet the report concluded that abuse was frequently not treated as an active safeguarding issue. How can that be right? That finding should concern everyone in this House. If abuse is present in the overwhelming majority of cases but is not consistently recognised in decisions about children and contact arrangements, there is clearly a systemic problem that requires urgent attention.
It is important to understand the nature of domestic abuse in this context. Abuse is not always physical violence; it can involve coercive control, intimidation, economic abuse, emotional manipulation, stalking, harassment, and patterns of behaviour designed to dominate and undermine another person. The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 rightly recognised coercive and controlling behaviour in law, yet many survivors continue to report that coercive control and post-separation abuse remain poorly understood in family court proceedings. For many perpetrators, separation does not end abuse. Instead, the family court can become another avenue of control through unnecessary litigation, manipulation of child contact arrangements and prolonged interaction with an abusive former partner.
Does the hon. Member agree that perpetrators should not be rewarded through the court process with reduced sentences when they change their plea to guilty at the last minute? It is just a continuation of the coercive and controlling behaviour that they have already displayed.
The hon. Member is absolutely right: somebody should not be rewarded when they have been difficult for months and months—probably years—and then at the last minute change their mind to get a reduced sentence. The judge probably sees them as being helpful, but they have not been helpful for a long time. The hon. Member makes a really good point.
Some have described the family courts process as very traumatising. We must recognise sophisticated tactics like DARVO—deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender—where perpetrators deny the abuse, attack the credibility of the survivor and then present themselves as the true victim. A survivor may therefore find themselves portrayed as hostile, manipulative or obstructive, and genuine attempts to protect children can be reframed by perpetrators as attempts to alienate a child from the other parent. That is one reason why specialist expertise in the courts is so important.
In a child custody case, a constituent of mine was told by a judge to stop making reports of domestic abuse against the ex-partner as it had no relevance to the case, despite their being presented with police reports. The ex-partner also used manipulative DARVO tactics and eventually gained custody of the child. Intimidated by the process, my constituent’s experience highlights the urgent need for stronger protection and specialist expertise in court.
I also want to address concerns surrounding the recent removal of the presumption of parental involvement in cases involving abuse. While many survivors and safeguarding organisations welcomed the reform, there is concern that some perpetrators may increasingly attempt to weaponise allegations against survivors by claiming that they themselves are the victims of abuse, or by claiming parental alienation in response to genuine safeguarding concerns. Domestic abuse specialists like Kaleidoscopic UK have long warned that allegations of so-called parental alienation can be used to discredit survivors and shift attention away from abuse allegations.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) on bringing this topic to the Chamber, where it belongs. We need to keep the pressure on to ensure that survivors have an improved sense of trust in the system.
I have experience of this issue as an MP. I would not say that I have been inundated, but many amazing women have shared their stories with me in my constituency surgeries. I pay tribute to and thank them for being brave enough to come forward. Without wanting to disclose characteristics or anything identifiable, I will share a flavour of what I have been told, which I am sure will not be unheard of for either the Minister or other Members.
For example, one mother and her children lived under coercive control, financial abuse and violence for many years. After separation, the abuse did not stop but simply changed form—the hon. Member for Wokingham described a similar case. The perpetrator continued to exert control through child contact arrangements, intimidation and financial manipulation, the children required to attend overnight contact despite repeatedly expressing fear and distress to professionals, including to their school. Critically, the abuse has never been tested in court. The survivor was discouraged from seeking a fact-finding hearing and had no access to legal services advice at that stage. As a result, her experience was minimised as “conflict” rather than recognised as abuse.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for securing this vital debate. I know that, since his election almost two years ago, he has spent much of his parliamentary time raising the issue of cancer and getting investment into cancer services. Now he is speaking about domestic abuse; no one can accuse him of not having his heart in the right place. I thank him for leading the debate.
As the MP for Woking, I have spent much of my time protecting vulnerable children, and I know that the Government do great work in tackling domestic violence and protecting families, women and children. Last week, I visited Surrey’s Steps to Change hub, which is based in my constituency of Woking and was established back in 2023, thanks to a £1 million grant from the Home Office. It brings together services, such as the local authority, the police and domestic abuse charities, such as Woking’s amazing Your Sanctuary women’s refuge, to ensure that they work together holistically.
Tragically, the hub is one of only two in the country. It supports those who have experienced, or are experiencing, domestic abuse, and separately it supports children impacted by what their family has gone through. Vitally, the hub also works with those who have committed domestic abuse, or those likely to do so, to encourage them to change their behaviour to prevent future abuse. It was really eye-opening to spend time with the volunteers and, above all, with some of those who have received the support that this amazing organisation provides.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) on securing this important debate and on his excellent opening speech.
There are countless amazing organisations across the country that support victims of domestic abuse. I pay tribute to Independent Domestic Abuse Services, the largest specialist charity in Yorkshire, which does sterling work to support my constituents in Scarborough and Whitby.
It is clear that our family justice system needs urgent reform to ensure that children are at the heart of proceedings. That was made incredibly clear to me earlier this week when I chaired a roundtable with charities, legal professionals and women with lived experience about improving outcomes for children in domestic abuse cases. Everyone on the panel agreed that children’s voices are lost in the system.
One of the many inspirational speakers was Julia Margo, co-founder of the charity Fair Hearing. After experiencing the unimaginable—discovering that her partner, the father of her two children, was a convicted child sex offender—her ordeal was continued by the family court system, as her ex-partner claimed legal aid and took her to court 37 times over the next eight years to demand access to their children. About the process, she said:
“The lawyers, magistrates and judges seemed to look on me as a hysteric, whose claims of trauma were exaggerated…The courts were more worried about ‘parental alienation’—that I should turn our sons against their father—than about two little boys being left alone with a paedophile.”
Since being elected to Parliament, I have been motivated by a brave constituent to work on reforming the family courts so that abusive partners cannot claim parental alienation to undermine and silence survivors and influence child contact arrangements. In recent years, there has been a rise in the use of experts to “prove” alienation—a pseudoscientific concept with no basis in law or medicine. A perpetrator of abuse will allege that a child’s refusal of contact or reluctance towards it is due to the survivor parent alienating the child from them. That has led to survivors having their children removed from them, which is against the interests of the child and the mother.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) on securing this important debate. May I also congratulate the Minister? This is my first opportunity to speak in a debate to which she is replying. Perhaps I should be congratulating the Government on her appointment, since I know she will do an excellent job.
Victims and survivors of domestic abuse who are separating from their abuser will often be involved in proceedings in the family court, for example to obtain a non-molestation or occupation order, divide assets following divorce or determine arrangements for children where these are in dispute. Sadly, perpetrators of domestic abuse often use proceedings in the family court as a means of coercive control and abuse post separation.
In the case of private law children proceedings, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s office, which gathered and analysed data from three court sites in England and Wales throughout 2024, found overwhelming evidence of domestic abuse, identifying it in 73% of the hearings observed. As I think the hon. Member for Wokingham said earlier, 87% in the sample of cases reviewed had reference to domestic abuse, which has led the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Dame Nicole Jacobs, to describe domestic abuse as
“the everyday business of the family courts”.
There are very significant numbers of these cases. In 2025 alone, more than 55,000 private law children cases started. Clearly a great number of people, including children, are affected.
Like all Members of this House, I have had people coming to my constituency surgeries having suffered from domestic abuse. If my hon. Friend will allow me, I want to place on the record the fantastic work that Glasgow Women’s Aid has done to support my constituents and people across the city in this most difficult of circumstances.
I am grateful for that intervention. Many Members here will have local organisations that they help to signpost, champion and try to obtain funding for. What I am arguing for is something that is comprehensive and reliable, in terms of funding and support. In addition to the excellent work that Members may do, we need a better structure to support the family court system and victims in it.
Just to review where we have got to so far, the June 2020 publication of the harm panel report, which has been mentioned, began a series of significant policy and legislative developments relating to domestic abuse and the family courts. Following extensive evidence gathering, the panel found that domestic abuse allegations and related risks were not taken sufficiently into account by the family court, due to “deep-seated and systemic” failings.
Many of the report’s recommendations were brought in by the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. For example, section 1 gives legal recognition to different forms of domestic abuse, including economic abuse and coercive control, and section 3 gives recognition to children who see, hear or experience domestic abuse as victims. The Act also requires that victims and survivors be provided with special measures to reduce the traumatising nature of proceedings and enable them to give their best evidence, such as the use of screens and the provision of separate entrances, exits and waiting rooms. Furthermore, it prevents unrepresented perpetrators or alleged perpetrators of abuse from cross-examining their victims or alleged victims during proceedings.
In response to the harm panel’s recommendation that the voice of the child should be enhanced during proceedings, the previous Government piloted child-focused courts, then referred to as private law pathfinder courts. The pilot, which began in north Wales and Dorset in 2022, was designed to test a less adversarial problem-solving approach. At the outset of a case, the risks posed to children from domestic abuse allegations are identified and specialist support is provided where needed. The results of the pilot indicated faster resolution of cases, children’s voices being placed at the foreground in proceedings and a transformed experience for domestic abuse victims.
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The charity Right to Equality undertook a survey on child removals and found that 81% of mothers who had their child removed were accused of parental alienation. It is a strategy routinely weaponised by abusers and often backed by unregulated experts who have no place in the courtroom. These bogus allegations can often lead to a child being removed from a safe parent and transferred to an abusive one. That is precisely why independent domestic violence advisers and the newly created children’s domestic abuse advocates are needed as experts. They can help courts to distinguish genuine safeguarding concerns from manipulative litigation tactics and identify patterns of coercive and post-separation abuse that might otherwise be missed.
At the centre of all of this is children. Children are not passive witnesses to domestic abuse. We know from extensive evidence that exposure to abuse and an environment of fear and instability can have profound, lifelong effects on emotional wellbeing, mental health, educational attainment and future relationships. The consequences of unsafe decisions in the family courts can be devastating. Women’s Aid has documented 67 child deaths over the last 30 years linked to abusive contact arrangements. We are not talking about abstract statistics, but children whose safety should have been paramount and families left with unimaginable grief.
Every one of those cases demands that we ask difficult questions about whether the system is adequately equipped to identify risk and respond appropriately. We must also acknowledge the wider human cost of domestic abuse. Home Office data recorded 98 suspected suicides following domestic abuse in the year to March 2024. Behind each figure is a life lost and a family devastated. The statistics remind us that domestic abuse is not a private matter; it is a serious public protection issue.
I pay tribute to the work of survivor-led organisations such as Kaleidoscopic UK, whose representatives are in the Gallery. Its members have campaigned tirelessly for reform in this area, and support adults and children affected by domestic abuse. Many of those involved with Kaleidoscopic are themselves survivors of abuse and have first-hand experience of navigating the family court system. Policymakers and justice institutions should listen carefully to those experiences when considering how the family court system can better protect vulnerable families.
I want to be clear that there are many dedicated professionals within the family justice system who are committed to safeguarding children and supporting families under immense pressure. This debate is not about criticising individuals; it is about asking whether the system as a whole is sufficiently equipped to deal with the complex realities of domestic abuse. I believe there is a strong case for the mandatory involvement of independent domestic violence advisers as specialist domestic abuse experts within the family court process. IDVAs understand patterns of coercive control, risk escalation, post-separation abuse, and the barriers that victims and children face in disclosing abuse. They possess specialist expertise that can help to identify risks that might otherwise be overlooked.
At present, however, access to specialist domestic abuse expertise within the family courts is very inconsistent. That inconsistency can lead to inconsistent outcomes and an unacceptable postcode lottery for survivors and children. Independent domestic abuse experts could help courts to identify patterns of abuse that are not immediately visible; strengthen safeguarding assessments by ensuring that risk assessments fully account for the realities of post-separation abuse; and improve consistency across the system and survivors’ confidence in the family justice process.
Importantly, this is not about undermining judicial independence. Judges must of course remain the ultimate decision makers, but they should have access to the best expertise available when dealing with complex safeguarding matters involving domestic abuse and child welfare. Sadly, several of my constituents have experienced being undermined and ignored in court by a judge who has had complaints made against them for overlooking their allegations of abuse and refusing to recognise abusive tactics in court. Having an expert present in this setting would provide my constituents, and all victims, with much more protection and understanding.
This House has already recognised the seriousness of domestic abuse through landmark legislation and policy reforms. The Domestic Abuse Act was a significant step forward. The recent removal of the presumption of parental involvement in cases involving abuse was also welcome and necessary, but legislation alone is not enough if implementation within systems and institutions does not reflect the realities that survivors face. In most cases, relationships between children and parents are important and beneficial, but where abuse is present, safety must always come first. The welfare of a child must remain the court’s paramount consideration, not simply the continuation of contact in principle.
There is also the broader issue of the culture in the family justice system. Survivors and advocacy organisations have raised concerns about myths and misconceptions surrounding domestic abuse, including assumptions about why victims remain in abusive relationships, expectations around perfect victim behaviour, and misunderstandings about post-separation abuse. Specialist domestic abuse expertise can help challenge those misconceptions and ensure that decisions are grounded in evidence and understanding.
I acknowledge the important work carried out by organisations supporting survivors every day: Women’s Aid, Refuge, Rights of Women, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Kaleidoscopic UK and many others have consistently highlighted these issues and advocated for reform. Their work has brought forward evidence that this House cannot ignore. Members across the House will know from their constituency casework that these concerns are not isolated incidents, and will have heard from constituents who feel failed by a system that was supposed to protect them and their children. Those experiences deserve to be heard.
This debate is about recognising the complexities of domestic abuse and that improving safeguarding within the family courts is both necessary and achievable. Family court decisions shape lives for years—sometimes generations—so I urge the Government to embed domestic abuse experts more effectively within the family justice system, to ensure that survivors and children are truly protected throughout court proceedings and beyond. Above all, we must build a family justice system that survivors can trust, that properly understands domestic abuse and that places the safety and welfare of children at the heart of every decision.
Coercive control and abuse are still not fully tested in court. Abuse is often reframed as conflict rather than what it actually it is, which leads to significant delays in therapy and support for children and a continuation of harm. The Home Office harm panel’s 2025 research on family courts found systematic failures, including the minimisation of domestic abuse. Having IDVAs or those that specialise in domestic abuse within the court system is a good suggestion, and one that I also call for. The court process is incredibly traumatic for families, and children’s voices are not listened to within it. Many survivors have reported to me unsafe contact orders that often allow public and unsupervised contact. In north Kent, there is a lack of supervised contact centres.
Children’s voices are being silenced—the voices of children with special educational needs are missing in this space. Within the court system, a lack of education and expertise means that people do not always understand why children’s behaviour changes when they are distressed, especially when they are unable to communicate verbally in the traditional way. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister about the special educational needs aspect of this issue.
We have a new supervised contact centre in Gravesham, which is welcome news for many families, whether they have gone through court or not. It will be housed at the Maltings Child Contact Centre at the City Praise Centre and will provide a safe, structured environment for well-behaved parents who should have contact with their children. The contact centre is one of only 340 centres nationally to be accredited by the National Association of Child Contact Centres. Given that there are 650 MPs, that is not even one per constituency. That needs to change.
We need people to speak up and come forward when they are experiencing harm and abuse, and we need to make sure that the system, including the court system, backs them and protects our children and survivors.
I am pleased to welcome the new Safeguarding Minister to her place. Surrey and only one other county have one of these hubs; I ask the Minister to draw attention to us as an example of best practice, but we should not be the only ones. Will she ensure that such support is rolled out across the country? It is saving and improving lives in my constituency and my county of Surrey. That is fortunate for me and my constituents, but it is far too rare and it should be rolled out nationwide.
I am concerned about the local government reorganisation in my area next year and that Surrey’s police and crime commissioner will be abolished in 2029 but not replaced by a directly elected Mayor, in which case the funding and convening power for the hub could go. I am pleased that the commissioner is going and that we will have new local authorities, but the risk of the transformation is that it could reduce the protection for families and children in my constituency. That would be unacceptable. Will the Minister meet me to ensure that the funding is maintained over this uncertain period?
As I said, the Government centrally and the whole public sector have done so much good to help survivors of domestic abuse recover and to protect them, and to ensure that such abuse does not happen in the first place. But all too often that fails catastrophically, with unthinkable consequences for some of the most vulnerable people. My 10-year-old constituent, Sara Sharif, was abused, tortured and murdered by her father and stepmother. She was failed from the day she was born, including on the day before she was murdered. She was failed by Surrey county council children’s services and by the family court system. That is why I echo the calls of my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham for reform.
When Sara was born and before she was even one year old, Surrey county council children’s services wanted to take her away from what they knew to be an abusive father. Tragically, they changed their mind and the family court did not say, “Surrey, are you sure? Surely you want to do that.” The day before Sara was murdered, Surrey county council children’s services tried to visit her home, because they were concerned, but they went to the wrong house and they did not try to go back.
Previously, I have urged the Government to put Surrey county council children’s services into special measures, but thankfully they are being abolished next year. I would urge the Safeguarding Minister to ensure that that appalling culture at Surrey county council is not transferred to the new East Surrey and West Surrey councils. Sadly, other children’s services are failing in this country, and I know that other areas across the country are going to have local government reorganisation. Will she ensure that this Government see local government reorganisation as an opportunity to change such a culture and to put vulnerable people first, to change child protection?
Sadly, Sara’s is not the only child protection case I have had in my constituency. Judith is another constituent. She and her children suffered years of domestic abuse from her former partner and she feared for her children’s safety. The family court eventually gave her full custody and no visitation rights for the dad. Surrey county council recently insisted that the father be reintroduced to the children, to see if it is safe for the family to court to give access. I hope that the Minister agrees that that is an appalling use of child protection rules and family court processes. I wholeheartedly welcome the ending of the presumption of parental contact, but that is a whole-system failure, and I hope that the Minister makes it a priority to tackle it in her new role.
I echo the calls of my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham for domestic abuse experts to be embedded in the family court system. I am incredibly disappointed that reform of the family court system and investment in, and changes to, the child protection process were not in the King’s Speech. Does the Minister not find that shameful? Will she ensure that it becomes a priority in other legislation and that the Government look favourably on amendments proposed to the legislation that was in the King’s Speech?
The non-profit Right to Equality conducted a large-scale survey of mothers whose children were removed from their care in private law proceedings. The survey reveals concerning patterns around child removal, including the role of parental alienation allegations, limited fact finding on abuse and the influence of expert recommendations. In total, the 217 mothers had 342 children removed from their care. That is clearly not in the best interests of those children and is deeply traumatic for the mothers.
I welcome the fact that the Government are rolling out child-focused courts nationally, which will put children at the centre of proceedings and will resolve cases more quickly, saving children months of trauma. Repealing the presumption of parental involvement—a long-overdue correction to a pro-contact culture that has failed to put children first—is a brilliant step forward. However, there is still a gap in legislation that risks the wellbeing of children in private family law proceedings. It simply does not address the question of what happens when a child resists or refuses contact with a party against whom abuse is alleged. What evidential weight does the court give to the child’s response?
I am currently drafting an amendment to the Courts and Tribunals Bill that aims to stop counter-allegations of alienation being used to undermine or distract from reports of domestic abuse. It would ensure that the child’s evidence has the weight that it deserves. It would ensure that a child’s resistance towards an abusive parent is treated not as evidence of manipulation, but as evidence of harm. When a child is reluctant or refuses to spend time with a person against whom allegations of domestic abuse have been made, it should be regarded as reasonable and justified. As the Government move forward with putting children at the heart of the family justice system, will the Minister commit to working with Parliament on changes to ensure that a child’s resistance to contact with an abusive parent is treated as credible evidence of harm and not of manipulation?
Last year, the Justice Committee, which I chair, examined the effectiveness of these recent reforms. We heard from the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, the chief executive of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service and the then president of the family division, Sir Andrew McFarlane. We were keen to understand, five years on from the publication of the harm panel report, what progress the family court had made on reforming its approach to domestic abuse in the cases before it.
One of our key findings was that there is wide approval and enthusiasm for the work and outcomes of child-focused courts, which our witnesses said should be rolled out across England and Wales with urgency. We are extremely pleased that that is now under way, with a substantial investment promised by the Government in this financial year.
However, a note of caution was sounded that I wish to highlight to the Minister. The model places much greater pressure on CAFCASS and other specialist support providers, particularly at the outset of a case, so they need to be resourced accordingly. In the words of one witness to our inquiry:
“If you are going to have specialist domestic abuse provision supporting the courts, then it needs to be baked into the budget and resource that are coming down the line. It is not the model of the court that will sort the experience of children and victims out; it is the quality of the risk assessment that goes on to present advice to the court.”
Our witnesses also reported on the success of the family, drug and alcohol court, which takes a problem-solving approach to care proceedings for parents with complex needs, including experiences of domestic abuse and substance misuse. I highlight to the Minister the great potential of that approach.
The former president of the family division was a great proponent of FDAC in domestic abuse cases. In his evidence to the then Committee in April 2024, he said that
“there is a domestic abuse component”
in every case dealt with by FDAC, and that FDAC had
“found a way of supporting that victim to deal with the fact that they may have a series of abusive relationships that they have gone through and to break the cycle.”
Despite this, FDAC provision is patchy, to say the least. There are currently FDAC teams supporting families in about 39 local authorities and 24 family courts. They are in an uncertain position, though, with Newcastle having lost its FDAC in the last year and with provision in the midlands looking precarious. Our witnesses pointed out that despite the strong evidence base demonstrating its success, the FDAC
“depends on small pots of funding year to year”,
usually from local authorities and dedicated individuals who understand its potential and cobble money together.
I therefore urge the Minister to consider the expansion of FDAC, which would enable courts hearing public law proceedings to respond more effectively to domestic abuse, in the same way that child-focused courts are doing in private law proceedings. FDAC must be looked at across Government, and I hope that the Government’s forthcoming family justice strategy will consider it. The Ministry of Justice is involved in providing the courtroom and the judge, but the Home Office, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education also have an interest in its beneficial outcomes.
Finally, in line with the recommendations of the harm panel, the Courts and Tribunals Bill will repeal the presumption of parental involvement in the Children Act 1989, ensuring a child-centred approach when deciding what contact a child should have with their parents. I hope that we will see the Bill returning to the House soon—I would be grateful if the Minister indicated today when that might happen, as there is a lot in the Bill that we would like to see more of—so that this important safeguard can be implemented without further delay.