‍

‍

By Dr Elizabeth Dalgarno and Natalie Page

‍Abused Children: A Political ‘Hot Potato’

Recently, there has been much concern around unregulated experts in family court. Experts are often instructed within private family law children’s proceedings, but serious doubts have emerged as some of these experts don’t have the right qualifications and regulations.

The importance of regulation and qualification being important is understated globally. No parent would knowingly send an unwell child for surgery or treatment from someone dubiously claiming to be a doctor. They would take their child to a licensed medical professional. Parents and professions most certainly would want to know that a brain or heart surgeon can actually perform such surgery if such surgery was needed. Those flouting regulation, like  Zholia Alemi, who earned over £1 million from the NHS posing as a psychiatrist for more than 20 years, need consequences for their actions.

Absurdly, the family justice system expects families to abandon common sense and agree to be psychologically assessed, with life changing  decisions made about them, by someone who isn’t even qualified to do the job. Parents are told to accept it, whatever the risk.

In response to the expose in The Observer on the use of unregulated experts in family court, the Family Justice Council and the British Psychological Society (BPS) issued guidance to address the problem. They noted that such experts should be either Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) regulated or Chartered members of the BPS, or otherwise chosen based on skillset and experience at the discretion of the court. However, in a recent case, it emerged that Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the family division, had shelved the importance of the new guidance; stating ‘it is no more than guidance or advice’.

McFarlane had presided over a case concerning Melanie Gill - a so-called ‘alienation’ expert and self-declared ‘highly specialised psychologist’ who is not regulated by the BPS or HCPC. Guardian journalist Hannah Summers has painstakingly followed the case and reported the outcomes and concerns.  

In the judgement, McFarlane made clear that it is Parliament’s job to impose a tighter framework of regulation on expert witnesses and not the Judiciary's.

Following Sir Andrew McFarlane’s judgement, MP for Coventry North West Taiwo Owatemi, sought clarification from the Ministry of Justice. Secretary of State for Justice Dominic Raab was asked what steps his department will take to ensure family court experts are suitably qualified and regulated. The response stated it is ‘a matter for the judiciary to determine which experts may be instructed to provide evidence in family law proceedings.’

For now, we are at an impasse; neither Parliament nor Judiciary are taking responsibility and simultaneously pointing fingers at the other about the task of court expert regulation. Silo-blaming means that thousands of children remain at risk of poor outcomes from professionals who are barely even qualified, and often entirely unregulated.

In 2022, 54,429 private law family court applications were made in England and Wales. Research from the late 1990’s to 2017 suggests allegations or findings of domestic abuse are found in 49% to 62% of applications. The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) were working with around 102,500 children in proceedings between April 2021 and March 2022. Child abuse is frequently minimized or under-detected in family court, and claims of ‘parental alienation’ have become the go-to litigation strategy to silence allegations of abuse. This situation has seen an exponential rise in the use of so-called ‘parental alienation’ experts who provide opinion to the court, which is often highly lucrative work.

The questions surrounding court expertise is subject to increasing scrutiny and calls for change, as growing numbers of families find themselves in adversarial private law children’s proceedings.

As it stands, any individual can falsely claim to be an expert and wade into sensitive court proceedings informing crucial decisions about vulnerable adults and children with just their opinions. These people face no consequences.

Both the government and the judiciary need to understand that vulnerable children are not a hot potato to dump on the desk of another department. The government must act with urgency to prevent more children being forever harmed by the processes and people intended to protect them.

‍

‍