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

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Categorized as Media

By Leigh Banks

I am a journalist, writer and broadcaster ... lately I've been concentrating on music, I spent many years as a music critic and a travel writer ... I gave up my last editorship a while ago and started concentrating on my blog. I was also asked to join AirTV International as a co host of a new show called Postcard ...

2 comments

  1. The worst abuser of children in Britain. The family court with its toxic entitled membership profiting from children’s misery. There may well be a book on this subject arriving soon.

  2. Seen by 14
    1 comment
    Andrew Brel
    Family Court is the biggest child abuser in Britain.
    Child abusing judgment are commonplace. Prosecutions of judges for child abuse are currently running at zero.
    That is because child abusing judges enjoy qualified immunity from prosecution for child abuse.
    But you know all that. Reform to child abusing family court will only begin when judges are brought to account for child abuse.
    Meanwhile, expect to see more sad stories caused by child abusing judgments by the family courts judges who judge by opinion only. Not by the metric of ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ Or even “the overwhelming weight of evidence.” They can summarily obstruct witness evidence and apply opinion based judgments that bear no relations to actual facts. In the course of making un-appealable judgments family court judges abuse children in 100% of disputed hearings. That stat comes from Anthony Douglas, former head of CAFCASS.
    The inherent systemic child abuse we see in family court judgments is the way it was, the way it is, and the way it will be until…….
    Here’s one example of British family court at work. Written as fiction but based on actual facts.
    https://www.amazon.com/dp/1077105932/

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