A decision to allow a father contact with his daughter despite him having sexually abused, domestically abused and coercively controlled the mother is “alarming”, a court has heard.
The allegations against the father, who is a member of the armed services, were found to have been proven on the balance of probabilities (the civil standard of proof) in a 2021 fact-finding judgment by the family court.
But Charlotte Proudman, representing the mother, said in written submissions that the findings of fact “have been put to one side and the focus has been on a ‘pro-contact approach’”. None of the parties in the case can be named.
The mother is appealing a decision by the recorder Christopher Sharp KC in March in which he said the status quo with respect to the daughter’s contact with her father should remain, despite a recommendation by the daughter’s court-appointed guardian to reduce contact by ceasing overnight stays.
The mother initially sought an order for a stay on contact or supervised contact with the father but then accepted the guardian’s recommendations. She said in submissions: “Despite such serious findings, contact was ordered to commence between [the daughter] and F [father] without a full risk assessment … The approach in this case has been nothing short of alarming.
“A [sexual abuse] victim ordered to promote contact with her [abuser]. At no stage has there been any consideration, nor any regard given to the impact of the profound sexual violence and abuse that I have suffered. Nor has there been any assessment as to whether F even accepts the findings, which is required.”
She said that the father manipulates her daughter to be mean about her and “exert control over me and cause me distress”, adding that a cross-allegation of “hostility” against her was victim-blaming “for struggling to promote my [sexual abuser]”.
Sharp also presided over the 2021 fact-finding judgment, but Proudman told Wednesday’s hearing there had been a “lack of engagement with any of the findings in 2021, which were of course very serious”. She said the father’s behaviour was criminal, “reprehensible and horrific” and added: “The approach in this case has been nothing short of alarming.”
The court heard that the mother had, at a hearing before a district judge in September last year, agreed to her eight-year-old daughter staying overnight with the father. She said she was “coerced” into that contact agreement but Carl Geary, for the father, told the family division of the high court in London it was “freely agreed” by the mother who then made an application to vary it and made fresh allegations against his client.
He told the court the father accepted the 2021 findings but said in written submissions: “F’s position is that the decision was consistent with [the daughter’s] welfare being the paramount consideration under section one of the Children Act 1989.
“M [mother] now seeks to depart from a position she previously agreed to, without identifying any material change in circumstances or new evidence of risk as between the time of her agreement and the imposition of the varied contact arrangements. It is F’s case that the court made a careful, case-specific assessment of harm and benefit.”
Mr Justice Peel said he expects to give judgment in the next few days.
