Judge Dread – The Future

The Family Justice Review is calling for written evidence by the end of September (see here). Anyone who is considering submitting a response should consider this: at the recent oral evidence session I attended with other lawyers, the panel were asking serious and reaching questions about the extent to which the courts needed to be [...]

Rise in Child Abuse Calls

The NSPCC has seen a dramatic increase in calls about suspected child abuse since Baby P – referrals from the NSPCC to the police or social services are up by a third in two years. I was astonished to read that between April 2008 and March 2009 the NSPCC passed on 11,243 suspected child protection [...]

Access All Areas?

A piece appeared in the Times last week accusing Family Courts of hiding information from parents, in particular relating to social services file. I must admit to being rather puzzled by this slightly muddled article. In the first instance within care proceedings the Local Authority is under a duty to provide a wealth of information at the outset of a [...]