Abuse of Process: Dramatic Extent of Stalking in the Family Courts

Last week NAPO (The Trade Union and Professional Association for Family Court & Probation Staff) and PAS (Protection Against Stalking) published a “dossier” of 33 cases that “exposes shocking use by convicted murders, rapists and stalkers of family and civil court processes to continue to cause fear and alarm to their victims.  The briefing details [...]

Jealously Protected

The Guardian runs a series of articles today about the Court of Protection: here (“The court of protection: defender of the vulnerable or shadowy and unjust?”), here (“Court of protection should be open to public scrutiny, says leading judge”) and here (“Court of protection must balance needs of vulnerable with rights of family”) in which variously the reader can [...]

Super Supreme

Last week I had a couple of hours to kill. So I went and took a gander at the Supreme Court – and I thought it was fantastic. Entering the court was like entering the lobby of a posh hotel – I was greeted by welcoming security staff with a “Good Morning Madam”, and was [...]

LiP Service

Litigants in Person are in the news. The penny seems to be dropping that they are becoming the norm rather than the exception. The Gazette carries a piece on the soaring numbers of LiPs, based upon a recent and stark increase in demand upon the services offered by the PSU at the RCJ, in particular [...]

We don’t need no Ed-ew-ca-shun

Earlier this week I spent a day on a Court of Protection course. Just as we were all entering a post lunch semi-vegative state, up strode Wall LJ to the podium. He is both President of the Family Division and of the Court of Protection. Readers of this blog may find his brief address interesting. [...]

Open letter to CAFCASS

“An open letter in respect of my resignation from Cafcass 26 September 2011 Dear  …………………, I have long had my doubts as to whether Cafcass as an organisation is fit for purpose.  I have been critical of the honesty and integrity of the management of the service, things that continue to concern me.  I have [...]

Purging like a kitten

I’m a bit behind the curve on this one. Others have covered it already so I can do no better than to point you to their work. Elizabeth Watson has purged her contempt in relation to the publication of material concerning the Vicky Haigh family proceedings. The judgment is astonishingly blunt and in my view [...]

Friday Oddments

More good stuff on the Haigh / Hemming / Booker / Watson sagathon: John Hemming’s Extraordinary Defence on Head of Legal. A must read. Christopher Booker sets us straight: about Judge Wall, the secrecy rules, and another stinging attack, saying “When journalists judges have such power to make their own rules about what can and [...]

Neither a Paedophile Nor a Paediatrician

More information is filtering into the public domain about the contempt of court proceedings connected to Vicky Haigh, and to the Children Act proceedings concerning her children, which have been held up by John Hemming MP as a case of injustice. Today the UK Human Rights Blog publishes the full press release, but we still [...]

Bared Teeth – Grrrrr!

Contempt of Court are the “teeth” behind privacy rules in family proceedings. The court will bite, but only when necessary. This week a private investigator enmeshed in the Vicky Haigh care proceedings (which has become a weird kind of celebrity care case thanks to the Max Cliffords of the family justice world: Christopher Booker and [...]