#138 Justice For Family Court Children
Campaigners Sammy Woodhouse and Victoria Hudson are battling for justice for those who have suffered through the Family Court system.
“It’s a cruel, barbaric, draconian system that seems to hate victims and just doesn’t believe them.”
Listen here (Transcript below):
Both Victoria and Sammy have been subjected to the trauma of the Family Court system and are now fighting to redress the harm done to so many women and children and improve the system for the future.
In this podcast, they discuss the government’s planned overhaul of the Family Court system and the recommendations of The Ministry of Justice’s Harm Report. They also share their campaign to help the forgotten victims who have already gone through the system in the past.
Follow their campaign on Facebook.
Use these hashtags when you share campaign news on social media: #JusticeForFCchildren #forgottonvictimsofFC #novictimleftbehind #endthisinjustice
Transcript:
Sally Jackson from FiLiA in conversation with Victoria and Sammy
Sally: Hi, I'm Sally Jackson. I volunteer with FiLiA and I'm really delighted today to be joined by Victoria Hudson and Sammy Woodhouse to talk about their Family Court campaign. So hi to both of you. It's lovely to have you here.
I think women listening will have various experiences of the Family Court. Sadly, far too many of them would have had negative experiences of the Family Court. Others might not, if you've not gone through the process, might not be aware of what some of the issues are. So I wonder Sammy, could you start by sort of talking about what made you feel that there was some work to be done here and got you active in this area?
Sammy: Of course. Well, for me, it started when I was a child from the age of 14, I was abused, criminally and sexually exploited by a man called Arshid Hussain. And through that abuse, I conceived a child. It can be quite difficult and getting authorities to first of all bring him to account, which only happened years and years later. I started when I was about 27 years old, when I came forward to The Times newspaper and exposed everything about what happened in Rotherham which led to over 1400 children being abused and raped and exploited.
I did say I had a child through the exploitation and I contacted social services because I was needing some help and support, not just me and everything I was going through with my mental health, but also with my son as well.
And my son had a lot of educational problems and also disabilities. So I decided to put my son on a section 20 to try and get some help from services. I had the full parental responsibility but I would get the help from social care that I needed. Now, my son was on a section 20 for a lot longer than what he actually should have been, it ended up being for years.
And that was because we were going through a trial. That trial was very lengthy. It was two and a half years. So we kind of put everything on the back burner until the trial came forward. So when all of that came to an end and services said, well, you know, Sammy, we have to decide what's going to happen with your son.
Is he going to come home full time or is he going into a full-time placement? Now, if my son would've come home full time, his case would have closed and he wouldn't have had any support and that would have been really dangerous to him, but also for us as a family because he did desperately need that that help and support from the agencies and if we kept him out, or put him on a full care order, that meant he would still get all the support that he needed. But because I wasn't a risk to him, I could see him whenever I wanted, he could come home whenever he wanted, et cetera. So it made sense for me to put him on the full care order and that's what we did. So that's how I came into contact with the Family Court.
I remember being at the Family Court with my ISVA worker. And the social worker said, ‘oh, he's not coming.’ And I said, ‘who's not coming.’ And he said ‘Arshid Hussain’ And I was like, well, of course he's not coming. He's in prison. He's been sentenced for 35 years. He's a danger to children. Why on earth would he be here, he’s not on the birth certificate. He's got no parental rights; he has no relationship with my son anymore. He’s a danger to children.
I was just so in shock, that they'd even notified him of the proceedings. Well, I mean, I was quite lucky in respect to that, because the only reason why he didn't turn up is because he hadn’t actually collected the papers and wasn't actually aware we was even in court.
For me, what I thought was going to be straightforward because me and the council was in joint decision of everything about what was going to happen with me and my son, I just thought was really straight forward, but I just couldn't believe the fact that a council had notified such a dangerous person, to have any involvement in my son's life. And I even said to the social worker, ‘how would this even work anyway if he's in prison for 35 years?’
And they said, well, he would make all the parental decisions, like where he would live, et cetera. And we will take him up to the prison to see him every week.
Now I won’t say the details of what happened with my son when he had contact for a very brief period of time when he was younger as a child. But I had very clearly proven that Arshid Hussain and his family members was not only a risk to me, to my son, but to lots of other children as well. And also my son had actually testified in a court case with myself against his family for witness intimidation.
They threatened to kill him and all sorts.
So a decision could have been made for him to go and live with those very people. It just seemed absolutely barbaric. And I just thought I need to do something about this. I wasn't aware of at that time that this was happening to so many people.
As a campaigner, I started to talk to other people and what I realised that this was happening to women all over the country. And I was actually quite fortunate because he never actually got to come to court but other women, they were having to play happy families and have contact with men that had raped and abused them.
And if they tried to stop that they were having their children removed. It just seemed really unfair that the system wasn't protecting women and children, and it was actually protecting the perpetrators.
And what happened after the Family Court situation with myself was: my son was very confused about what had happened.
And even though I was honest with him, you know, of course I had to tell him because what happened to me actually turned into a worldwide story. So not only did my son have to deal with the fact that his mum had been raped. It was actually by his dad and that's how he was conceived. And it's now all over the TV and the news. He had so much to deal with and he just needed support in dealing with that. And people recognised that we needed support as a family, but there wasn't really anyone that was qualified in dealing with what he had to go through. It was almost as if he didn't have a voice in it all. It was really tough for him.
So what professionals started to do was say to him was ‘maybe if we go into prison and see your dad, you can ask him face to face on why he did what he did and you can get some closure and get some answers.’
And what I tied saying to professionals, was: First of all, the rapist is not even admitted or recognised he was at fault. He's never going to admit to what he did and that he was in the wrong, et cetera.
So what it's going to come down to is, well, actually your mum is lying. So then straight away, it's going to be kind of a fight between who was telling the truth, mum or dad. Fortunately my son didn't go to prison to see him. I managed to kind of put a stop to it, but that was only because I contacted Louise Hay and Andrew Norfolk at The Times newspaper.
I went public with it and I told the whole nation really about what had happened and what is going on around the country for other children and women, and me and Louise started to meet with Ministers and other MPs, other campaigners to try and get a stop to this. And I started a campaign to put something in place, where a rapist couldn't have access to children.
And what I was starting to hear from people in power was, well, actually, they have a right to family life. So again, the perpetrator's rights seem to be more important than women and children's, and then that's, I suppose, how the campaign started and then how I came into contact with Victoria.
Sally: Thank you so much, Sammy, for sharing that.
And you know, as you say, a lot of people will remember Rotherham and know, thinking of your son and all that he's gone through, and this system seems to be forcing these things to happen again. So a system that's supposed to set up to support families is actually the one that's causing more harm as it goes along.
That sort of brings us to you, Victoria, can you talk to us a little bit about how you got involved and your feelings about the campaign?
Victoria: Yeah. I mean, I have my own horrendous experience of Family Court. I was in Family Court for two years and it's just a very cruel, barbaric draconian system that seems to hate victims of abuse, any forms of abuse and just doesn't believe them and works against them.
After two years of just going through sheer hell, I went public with my story and ended up getting a lot of support from a lot of people in the country, quite important people, and started my campaign around Family Courts. And at the same time, Sammy had met up, with Rachel Williams, and Louise Haigh, quite a lot of MPs to start their Bill into Parliament.
And another thing just to say with Sammy’s Bill that went into Parliament, they also were looking at an independent investigation into how the Family Courts were running in private care proceedings.
What happened was the government didn't agree to that, but they did agree to a review, a three-month review into the Family Court system.
This took 13 months and we finally received the Harms Report from the Ministry of Justice in June, 2020. I think it's about 230 pages long, just admitting the harm in what happens to victims of abuse in the Family Court and what happens to children in the Family Court and it's everything that we've been saying, and that we've been campaigning for. That basically victims of domestic abuse, rape, coercive control, they are forced to co-parent with their perpetrator. And even if it's placing the child in danger as well, even if it's placing themselves in danger and if they don't, they are threatened with their child being removed from them to the perpetrator. They're threatened with their child being put into foster care. It's a very cruel system.
People don't know what's happening in there because the Courts are very secret and can hide under the Children's Act, which obviously says it has to be in the best interest of the child and the privacy of the child.
But usually what's happening is they're hiding behind this to hide these horrendous stories.
Obviously there was the Women's Aid Child First campaign, which showed that there 21 children had died because of decisions made in the Family Court system. And then of course, the campaign in 2017 to change practice direction, 12 J which should work. But as we know it doesn't get implemented in the Family Court system. So that should be enough to protect victims and children.
I think what we found is after the Harms Report came out, the government said all the recommendations will be implemented. We're now a year on, nearly and none of those implementations have been done so far.
And we've still got a system where victims of domestic abuse are being forced to co-parent with their abusers, sending their children to unsafe contact. The children are coming back and disclosing abuse, and then the children are being removed from some of the mums and placed into unsafe residency.
That's where I've now joined forces with Sammy because we're both in a similar situation where we want a change to be made and nothing is happening. None of the implementations have been put in place from the Harms Report.
We've recently had the four conjoined cases in domestic abuse cases in High Court, which I helped and gave my lived experience to the Harms Report with the Ministry of Justice, and I've also helped give my lived experience to the meetings which I co-founded with Women's Aid for the 400 cases as well, with all the legal teams, which was great to be a part of. The judgment came out that the Family Court have not been recognising patterns of abuse.
So when there is an abuser, violence or rape or abuse in whatever way they put them down as historic cases, or they put them down as isolated cases. And what the judges is and CAFCASS workers and social workers are not doing is joining of patterns of behaviour. So I think the judgment was good in the fact that it showed that the Family Court now has to, and the people involved all the professionals, have now got to make sure that they see a pattern of behaviour, which also should come through in post-separation abuse through contact orders or residency changes.
I think we've got a serious problem with professionals in the Family Court, not recognising post separation abuse and abusers using the children to destroy the other parent.
Moving forward to our campaign. Now, we're now looking to ask the government to set up a system, whether it be a separate system or a review system of cases that went before the implementation of the Harms Report. As the people who went before the Harms Report or before the implementations, we've still got a lot of victims of abuse that still have their children on unsafe contact orders, unsafe residency changes. They basically have no way of getting justice.
So Alex Chalk, Justice Minister, has said that the victims of domestic abuse can go back for an appeal or they can go back for contact cases.
Well, it's nearly impossible to get an appeal. I don't know if any person out there has ever successfully got an appeal because you appeal on a point of law.
So if they've put the law in place correctly, even if it's a terrible safeguarding issue or a very immoral or corrupt decision, as long as the law is correct, there's no way of getting an appeal. Also for contact orders for those victims of domestic abuse, who lost their children to the perpetrator, you cannot gain justice and get your child home safe via contact proceedings, plus if you're going back to the same broken system with the same judge, the same CAFCASS office or the same social workers involved, who just believe that there is no abuse. There was no abuse. Then you're not going to get justice. You might even get a worse decision made because it might be punitive.
But yeah, that's where we are at the minute.
Me and Sammy are wanting to get a system setup that is abuse aware, that is trauma informed and is a much safer system than the one we've got in place now.
Sally: Picking out the word system is, you know, we're using that a lot. There’s been little bits of tinkering around the edges, but the reality is it's this system that we have around the Family Courts, where you can have this crazy process whereby because of domestic abuse, you go into the criminal court and you're told, because you've stayed with a violent man, you've put your child at risk, so you really should take it to the criminal proceedings and leave him because you're putting the child in danger. And so you do what you're told and then that may be a very short prison sentence, but most likely a community sentence for that offense.
And at that time, then when you leave him, you go back through the Family Court who tell you that you are alienating him as a parent, if you don't allow him to see the child that you know, it's not safe for that child to be in his presence. So we've got these systems that just don't talk to each other and don't make sense.
Do you have any feelings around the Domestic Abuse Bill going through at the moment? Is there any optimism that that would make things better? I know we were kind of hopeful that here were some opportunities there for that to be used and where we seem to be at the final stages. Now, what are your thoughts about if that could be helpful?
Sammy: I think obviously changes are going to be helpful moving forward for people in the future. But I think what both me and Victoria wants to know what this campaign is about is giving a voice and potential justice to the people that are being left behind, because that is what's happened.
The Harms Report has come out. It's recognised that there was wrongdoing. And that's it, it’s just been left and the people have been left behind with it. And I think that's really wrong. So for me, as much as the changes that can continue on the Domestic Violence Bill can be really great for the people. It's important that all people are helped.
Victoria: help. Yeah. I just want to pick up on that Sammy if that's okay, because exactly what you're saying, the Domestic Abuse Bill for now, I do have some concerns with it because without redress on the cases that went before The Harms Report, we can't get justice and these children are left, for example, things like special measures in courts, without changing the culture of the court.
If a victim goes in and asks for special measures, they say they want a screen, they want a separate waiting room. They want separate exits. What they're saying to a Family Court judge is I'm a victim. And because of the culture in Family Court at the minute where there seems to be a hatred towards victims, I think that's placing them in more danger, at the minute, until the there's a culture change until we get redress on the cases. And until we are recognised as victims of domestic abuse, and these children are recognised that they could be being placed in harm's way.
I think some of the Domestic Abuse Bill might make it worse for victims in Family Court, but as Sammy said, moving forward, all these great policies, practices, law changes, I'm all, I'm all for them. But what about the people that have already had unsafe contact orders, who every weekend their child is grabbing hold of them or grabbing hold of furniture and screaming, not wanting to go to be abused for five hours or for a weekend. What about the mums that have lost their children have to go and see their children in contact centres because they were a victim of domestic abuse?
These children may still have another 10 years plus abuse. And the government has put nothing in place since the Harms Report for these victims to go back and gain justice. So there's no system being put in place. So that's what me and Sammy are looking for. The government says all the time. #No Victim Left Behind, but they are leaving the victims of their Family Court system.
Sammy: As well, you know, when all these people that are being put in harm’s way, they're either in contact with a dangerous person, either with full custody or even just visits, in my case, after the rapist was jailed my son didn't go into prison to see him. However, what I found out afterwards without my knowledge or consent, is that the rapist actually phoned my son from prison. And even though it was just one phone call, the amount of chaos that one phone call caused my son was just devastating. And yet again, it was me as the victim picking up all the pieces.
So if that came from just one phone call, can you imagine what all the women and children are going through when it's regular contact?
Victoria: It’s just horrendous, nothing has been put in place for us to be able to appeal any decision after the Harms Report. The Harms Report, that's our evidence right there, 230 pages of saying we have failed you. We have put your children on unsafe contact orders or unsafe residency. There's your evidence right there, but we're not going to do anything about it.
Sammy: It's actually putting off a lot of people from coming forward and reporting abuse because the first thing everyone says to me is I would just get my kids took off me.
So, everyone is absolutely terrified.
Coming back to something you said earlier, Sally, it's in my records by Rotherham council, that if I was to allow this man anywhere near my child, then he would be removed from my care because that is me putting him at risk. And I totally agree with that. I don't want him near my son, but yet it's okay for the system to do it.
Sally: It’s just crazy. And as you said, all the evidence in the Harms Report. So we've said, to all of the families that were involved and let's face it, there will be plenty more that didn't get their stories heard in part of the Harms Report that have gone through fairly similar things.
So the Harms Report comes to a conclusion that yes, this isn't fit for purpose. And yes, people have definitely been harmed. Mums and children definitely been harmed. Not only are they not offering any kind of way to heal from that and move forward from that to, to support you. But they've also not stopped doing any of the things that they've recognised are causing harm. So having decided that's harmful behaviour, it's just continuing.
Sammy: Yeah, I hear all the time. lessons learnt, things are going to change, We've kind of changed the system now. We have a system that's totally unfit for purpose, not just to do with the Family Courts, you know, in regards to everything with sexual violence. I understand we've come some way to meet better changes, but the system is nowhere near to support people.
Victoria: I was disappointed on Thursday with the Domestic Abuse Bill when it was in the House of Commons, when they said that they believe it's the decision of the Ministry of Justice, whether the judges should be trained on domestic abuse, even though I would say probably 90% plus of the cases have allegations of abuse in the Family Court system.
So I think it's imperative that everybody who works in the Family Court system is trained in domestic abuse. And that's why it means Sammy and I are looking at a separate system for victims of domestic abuse when they're going through the Family Court system.
We’ve heard that there is a criminal case review system, which is independent of the government. So why isn't there a victim review system? So that any victim that feels like they haven't gained justice and their child is placed in an unsafe contact order, or residents has a right to independently go and have the case reviewed. So I think there's something that
Me and Sammy are looking into, holding the government to account and making sure that they do put something in place for these children that have been left behind after the Harms Report.
Sally: And I think it's, in some ways I'm kind of reminded that we've been talking about the Family Court for so long now. And the terrible cases that we hear of that have been through the Family Court and been dealt with so appallingly, whether it's through the women's aid reports that you mentioned before.
It just seems to me there's not a way to fix it. We need to start again. And you mentioned this, you can review a criminal case, so you should be able to review a private case, but do we need to perhaps be thinking just very differently about how that family system works? Because it's certainly not working for women and it's certainly not working for children at the moment.
Victoria: I think what you're saying about being the same and for a long time. And I think I've been maybe one of the luckier mums, I do have a voice. I think I'm maybe the only mum that's gone public that's kept positive press. I think even the press can annihilate the Mums when they come forward as victims as well.
So I've been lucky in that way. And because of that, I've been able to get into certain meetings with the bigger charities and the commissioners and the people working on things like this and being able to have a voice. And what I've found is changing policies and changing procedures and changing laws within Family Court and going back to the same judges, same CAFCASS offices, same social workers whose views are entrenched and they don't believe these victims. They don't believe abuse happens. They believe in contact at all costs. Like Sammy was saying earlier, it didn't matter that he was in jail for 35 years and a danger to children. It was contact at all costs.
I think we can't keep on spending decades, changing a little policy here, changing a little practice here because the courts are kind of so secretive to the point of corrupt. A judge isn't going to implement that law or implement that procedure or implement that policy. They're going to ignore the one that doesn't fit their narrative.
So I think a separate system, which is independent, like the criminal cases review or something where it puts in place, an independent body that has nothing to do with the ministry of justice that can just have a look at these cases and make sure that they know the children are safe, the victims are safe and it is, justice is gained.
Sammy: I think that the Family Courts need to be opened of course with people's identities protected. But I think that is part of the problem. The fact that we are the secrecy around it, you have these professionals with so much power. And I don't think that people should ever have that amount of power. I think it needs to be open so the public know exactly what's happening. But again with people's identities protected.
Sally: We hear sometimes don't we and I'm going to be careful and not mention any names, but if you’re talking to women within this field, you'll hear the names of some judges, time and time again, and similar sort of attitudes within the Family Court and with all the secrecy that's around it, there isn't a way to be able to really demonstrate around that and highlight particular issues with particular judges or particular judges are showing a certain attitude towards women or particularly women who've experienced violence. So without lifting that secrecy and I'm absolutely all for privacy and making sure that family’s details are kept confidential and they're kept safe, but I think there's a way to lift the secrecy and maintain some privacy.
Victoria: We did have the four conjoined cases that were in the court of appeal earlier this year, and that was open. And while everybody's privacy was kept, even myself who, obviously a lot of mums come to me and let me know what's going on with their stories and things like that.
I didn't know any of these women. I couldn't identify them through their stories. So I think it is possible to have some form of transparency.
Sammy: You’re right. With the four cases that was open to the public to be heard, we got to know what was going on, but everybody's identity was protected.
When I went through my trial it was very public but obviously not my name, because I was a victim of a sexual crime. You're allowed to keep that anonymous. I think the Family Court should be in the same way. Journalists can go in, but a lot of paperwork involved, et cetera. So it makes it quite difficult to do. Am I right in thinking that?
Victoria: Yes, it's very, very, very difficult to do. So it's nearly impossible so many, journalists just don't end up even bothering to try.
Sally: Louise Tickle has done some great work, as a journalist, trying to get a bit more transparency into what's going on. And again absolutely minding people's privacy and confidentiality, but being able to look at the system and some of the decisions.
Coming back to the campaign, then when you're saying you're looking at the sort of more trauma-informed courts, the training within the judiciary.
How could we go about supporting this? What, what does that look like?
Sammy: What we're doing is we've been speaking to MP Jess Phillips, and we're hoping that she's going to raise things. For me and Victoria as campaigners, you know, we've done our job. We've fetched our stories to the forefront. We took it to the media. We've got the nation talking about it. We've contacted the MPs and ministers, et cetera. And everybody, we need to make aware. It's now time for them to do their job. You know, obviously me and Victoria, we'll still continue with whoever we need to, and kind of keep making those changes and to make sure our campaigns put in place, but it's not going to happen overnight. We know it's going to take time.
Some campaigns I've been working on for eight years, probably I'll be working on them in another 8 years as well. We’re very hopeful and very determined to push it forward.
Victoria: Yeah. I mean, when you’re saying about supporting, I mean, do you want to share our social media as well? So people can follow the campaign. That would be great.
But also moving forward as we implement our campaign a little bit more hopefully we can get people to write to their MPs in support of the campaign as well. The more people we have writing to their MPs asking their MPs to support what we're doing; the further forward we'll get.
Sally: Yeah, we had a lovely chat with Joan Smith, the journalist and author. And one of the things she was saying was how violence against women isn't political enough politically in that, you know, this time of year where you've got an election coming up and someone comes knocking on your door saying, will you vote for me? Clearly women are often able to say, well, what are you doing about violence against women. For those that can, at this time of year, when you've got politicians and canvases coming around, if you say, I’m worried about the Family Courts, then at least that gets political parties on a local level.
And then hopefully more on a national level talking about the fact that actually this is politically important and it raises it up the agenda, hopefully, but if we don't talk to them about it, we can't expect them to take it on. So I just encourage just asking that question, you know, have you heard about the campaign around Family Courts? What are you doing about it?
Sammy: You’re right, it’s so important to keep the pressure on, because what can often happen is it hit the media. But then of course the next day another the story comes along and another story and it can be forgotten about. So it's so important that everybody keeps that pressure on, whether it's contacting MPs, speaking to them, et cetera, social media, everybody can play a part in this.
Sally: It’s so easy, isn't it to, theyworkforyou.com will tell you who your MP is and you know, even if it's just a quick email: I'm worried about what's happening in the Family Courts, please tell me what you’re doing about it. You know, just a few minutes.
I think if it's not directly happening to you, it can be very difficult to think about the harm that women and children are going through. And, you know, for a few minutes of your time could really make a difference, if we could get them moving on this much quicker and get some redress for those that have already been through it and also get some changes so that in the future things improve. But I really would encourage all of our listeners to get involved with this. Follow the # and get involved with it.
But can I say thank you both to you Sammy and Victoria, because as you said earlier, you know, obviously this is personally important to you, but it takes huge courage to take those things that affect you personally and step forward publicly. And it's because you've had that courage and you keep having that courage and bringing this up and making those empower listen that we are getting the improvements and we are slowly crawling forward.
So thank you so much for all you do for women and children. Hopefully with the support of some of our listeners, we can move this forward a bit as well, and we'll keep in touch to see how it's going if that's okay.
Sammy: Definitely. Thank you.
Victoria: And can I just say quickly I just want to say a quick thank you to Sammy because she is absolutely lovely to work with. And also thank you Sally for raising our voices as well. It’s been a great help for us.