Family courts failing children
Family courts 'failing
children'
By Frances Gibb, Legal Editor
Sunday
Times Online
THE head of
Britain’s family lawyers has accused the Government of leaving
children to be brought up by one parent because of its failure to
revamp a “creaking and under funded” divorce Family courts system. David
Burrows, chairman of the Solicitors Family Law Association (SFLA),
says that the system for determining contact with children and
custody is failing, leaving access rows between divorced or
separated parents unresolved.
The attack from the leader of the
5,000-strong association is contained in the January issue of the
SFLA’s news-letter. It comes at a time of increasing pressure from
fathers who say that their rights of access to children are denied
and that courts allow mothers to breach contact orders with impunity.
Mr Burrows says
ministers were “apparently deaf” to recommendations that came after
an inquiry into the system chaired by Mr Justice Nicholas Wall,
almost two years ago.
“Family courts are failing the children and their parents which
they are set up to serve,” he says.
“Proceedings start in an ill-co-ordinated way: there is no
consistent procedure around the country. There is no clear view
about the extent to which mature children should be involved in
proceedings or at court.”
Mediation services are patchy, he says, while court welfare
officers are under- resourced, of limited availability and slow in
producing reports. “For lack of resources they often add to the
delays in children proceedings, thus deepening the frustration of a
parent whose contact is limited and adding further to the
degradation of the welfare of children concerned.”
The Department for Constitutional Affairs said that it had taken
Mr Justice Wall’s recommendations seriously and hoped to produce a
set of proposals for change in the new year.
Sunday
Times Online
December 30, 2003
Family Law
Association (SFLA), says that the system for determining contact
with children and custody is failing
