Finally, journalist ‘allowed’ to share cold dark truths of the family courts

For years, as a father campaigning against parental alienation and as a working journalist, I have had my freedom to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth strangled by laws supposedly designed to protect our children.

But family laws in the UK – and to a large extent across the world – have deliberately created separation and heartbreak.

And these sick and draconian laws operated by the family courts have actually perpetuated the desire of social workers, councils, lawyers, Cafcass, alienating parents and judges to keep their child-snatching secrets.

I make no apologies for my tabloid language, a major part of my job has always been to fight for those who are beleaguered and battered by the cold and vindictive bastions of our society.

But finally the beginnings of some good news … journalists should soon be able to report on what takes place inside these courts, albeit initially only in a very small number of local courts.

The head of family courts, Sir Andrew McFarlane, has put forward a series of proposals after a two-year review.

And these – we all hope – will go a long way to ending the secrecy of family hearings. For so many shameful decades they have been held behind closed doors.

An organisation I have a lot of time and respect for, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, has developed a framework for what it describes as a family court reporting pilot.

Sir Andrew is said to consider the framework as a first step towards implementing new reporting rules. The proposed pilot gives accredited journalists the right to report from family courts, rather than having to make costly and time-consuming applications to the judge.

This is one of the most heinous secrets the family courts do not share … they make journalists pay for a chance at reporting ‘the truth’. But only ‘the truth’ the court wants to be revealed.

And our sherry-sipping, dinner party-attending, middle-class judiciary has the final say on what ‘truth’ can be told.

They are the judges who hanged us all.

Some of the state’s most draconian powers – to remove children from their parents, to have them adopted, to deprive children of their liberty – have been exercised by these people in secret for more than half a century.

And people like me are banned by law from reporting any of the detail of these hearings, including human rights breaches by local authorities and poor practice by judges.

We can watch from the ‘press gallery’ but if we report on what’s going on, we face being found in contempt of court and being sent to jail.

Family members too are banned from talking about injustices they feel have taken place in family courts. They too face jail.

For decades broken-hearted parents and children have had their right to freedom of speech stolen by the very people who say they are protecting us.

Let’s welcome this break-through by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and support all broadcasters, writers and journalists who are battling for the right to tell the truth about our lives.

#familycourts #media #secrecy